SYDNEY LICHT Packaged Goods
On the cover: Still Life with Sardines, 2014 Oil on linen 8 x 8 in
SYDNEY LICHT Packaged Goods
May 28th – June 27th, 2015
Still LIfe with Sugar Packets and Cup #2, 2015 Oil on board 8 in. x 8 in.
Leaning Out, 2015 Oil on linen 28 x 28 in
Leaning In, 2015 Oil on linen 28 x 28 in
Still Life with Sugar Packets and Cup #2, 2015 Oil on panel 8 x 8 in
Balancing Act, 2014 Oil on panel 12 x 12 in
Still Life with Plum, 2014 Oil on linen 10 x 10 in
Still Life with Pear, 2014 Oil on panel 12 x 12 in
Still Life with Sugar Packets and Cup # 1, 2015 Oil on linen 12 x 12 in
Tower of Boxes, 2015 Found boxes 144 in high
Kathryn Markel Fine Arts is pleased to present Packaged Goods, a solo exhibition featuring new paintings by Sydney Licht. Art history contains myriad domestic still lifes full of food, utensils, flowers, and other elements that celebrate the table. Sydney Licht works within this traditional genre, choosing as subject matter the detritus of today’s packaged, sealed and sanitized food. She updates the conventions of still life by depicting the un-idealized remnants of our consumer culture and creates painterly architecture out of the ordinary. Licht’s still lifes are concerned with formal, explorative aspects of painting such as color relationships and an interest in the materiality of paint itself. She employs rough, thoughtful strokes, applied with palette knives and brushes that extend the edges of the canvas. Tabletops and other interior surfaces are minimized to a sliver of color or block of pattern across the bottom of the canvas where boxes and packages are stacked and arranged into planes of color and form. Sugar packets, take-out boxes and to go cups are loosely painted with a softness fashioned with thick marks, but are firmly planted with the weight and volume of their precise composition. Using a palette that is predominantly pastel, she impresses soft shadows that anchor her intimate piles to their resting places. The off-center placement of the objects turns the viewer’s attention to the negative space around them, leaving pause to consider the object’s existence. Sydney Licht lives and works in New York and has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows around the country. She completed a Yaddo residency and was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome. She was granted an Individual Artist Fellowship in Painting from the Ohio Arts Council, among others. She received a B.A. from Smith College and completed an M.F.A. at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Still Life with Fat Quarters, 2014 Oil on linen 10 x 10 in
Still Life with Fat Quarters and Vase, 2014 Oil on linen 10 x 10 in
Piles #3, 2014 Oil on linen 16 x 16 in.
Still Life with Flowers, 2015 Oil on linen 12 x 12 in.
Still Life with AC, 2015 Oil on linen 16 x 24 in.
Still Life with Pear and Vase, 2015 Oil on linen 10 x 10 in
Still Life with Flowers, 2015 Oil on linen 10 x 10 in
Still Life with Sugar Packets, 2015 Oil on linen 12 x 12 in
Untitled, 2015 Found boxes 6 1/2 x 16 x 1 in. Dimensions variable
(View from Front and Back) Untitled, 2015 Found boxes 12 x 7 x 8 in.
Still Life with Sardines, 2014 Oil on linen 8 x 8 in
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2015 Packaged Goods, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, NY, NY 2011 Recent Works, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, Bridgehampton, NY 2008 New Works, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, NY, NY 2006 Boxed & Bagged, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, NY, NY 2003 New SJll Life PainJngs, lyonswier gallery, NY, NY 2003 On the Table, geschiedle, Chicago, IL 2001 Bunches, Lyonswier Packer Gallery, Chicago, IL Strain, SPACELab, SPACES Gallery, Cleveland, OH 1998 Houghton House Gallery, Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY 1997 SJll Life PainJngs, Lyons-‐Wier Gallery, Chicago, IL 1996 New PainJngs, 55 Mercer, NY, NY 1995 New SJll Lifes, Lyons-‐Wier & Ginsberg Gallery, Chicago, IL SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2015 Paper Works, Six-‐Person Show with catalogue essay by Jennifer Samet, Warm Springs Gallery, CharloZesville, VA, February 4 -‐ March 31. 2015 Beyond the Window, Traveling to: Norton Center for the Arts at Centre College, Danville, KY; Bowery Gallery, NYC; Alexandre Hogue Gallery, University of Tulsa, OK. 2014 Two-‐Person Show, Chase Young Gallery, Boston MA, March 5 -‐ 30 2013 Two-‐Person Show, Salena Gallery, Long Island University/Brooklyn Campus, September 3 -‐ 27. 2013 SJll, Blue, Traveling to: Jessie C. Wilson Galleries, Anderson University, Anderson, IN, First Street Gallery, NYC 2012 Inside/Outside, Two-‐Person Show, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, Bridgehampton 2012 ReflecJons, Traveling to: Lindenwood University, St. Charles, MO; Crisp Museum, Southeast Missouri State University, Sinclair Galleries, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, IA; The PainJng Center, NYC, PA College of Art and Design, Lancaster, PA Small Works, Cumberland Gallery, Nashville, TN The Common Object, Traveling to: Lancaster Museum of Art, Lancaster, PA; Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Newport News, VA; Prince St. Gallery, NYC; Meyerhoff Gallery, Maryland InsJtute College of Art, BalJmore, MD 2010 Small Works InvitaJonal, The PainJng Center, NY, NY 2009 In/Out, Broome St. Gallery, NYC; Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY 2008 Small Takes, First Street Gallery, NY, NY 2007 On Board, Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York, NY 2006 2nd Rochester Biennial, Memorial Art Gallery, U of Rochester, Rochester, NY Facets of PercepJon, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, NY; Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center, Auburn, NY; Eleanor D. Wilson Museum, Hollins University, Roanoke VA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS (CONTINUED) 2005 SJll Life, Art Access Gallery, Columbus, OH 2004 Three Squares, Nathan Larramendy Gallery, Ojai, CA 2003 Guaranteed Fresh: SJll Life Today, Davidson Galleries, SeaZle, WA 2002 About Looking At Things, gescheidle, Chicago, IL 2001 Pyramid Art Center Upstate InvitaJonal, Rochester, NY Something Old, Something New, Lyonswier Gallery, NY, NY 2000 Two-‐Person Show, Tower Fine Arts Gallery, State University of NY at Brockport New Realism for a New Millennium, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY 1999 Hot Lunch, HartneZ Gallery, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 1998 SJll Lifes, Lyons-‐Wier Gallery, Chicago, IL 1996 & 1995 Dept. of Art Faculty ExhibiJon, Hopkins Gallery, OH State University 1995
SJll Life: Three Ohio Painters, Denison University Gallery, Granville, OH
HONORS & RESIDENCIES 2010 Yaddo Residency, Saratoga Springs, NY, April -‐ May 2008 VisiJng ArJst, The American Academy in Rome, Italy, November 1997 Ohio Arts Council, Individual ArJst Fellowship in PainJng 1986 Jerome FoundaJon Grant, Minneapolis, MN, W.A.R.M. InvitaJonal CompeJJon 1976 Scholarship for study at Skowhegan School, Skowhegan, ME 1976 Elected to Smith College Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Advance PublicaJons, New York, NY ConstellaJon Brands, Rochester, NY FMR CorporaJon/Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA Scripps Howard FoundaJon, CincinnaJ, OH
EDUCATION 1983 Master of Fine Arts, School of the Art InsJtute of Chicago, Chicago, IL 1976 Skowhegan School of PainJng & Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME 1976 A.B., Smith College, Northampton, MA, magna cum laude SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 2014 Katz, Marni, Sydney Licht’s Color Stacked PainJngs, Design Milk website, hZp://design-‐milk.com/sydney-‐lichts-‐color-‐stacked-‐painJngs/, Jan 31. 2014 Katz, Marni, blog, hZp://stylecarrot.com/2014/01/27/sydney-‐licht/, Jan. 27. 2014 Lauer, David and Pentak, Stephen, Design Basics, 9th Ed., Cengage Publishing. 2013 Naves, Mario, Shared Experience: The PainJngs of Rachel Youens and Sydney Licht, Too Much Art blog, www.mnaves.wordpress.com, September 4. 2012 Plotkin, Neil, Interview on PainJng PercepJons Blog, www.painJngpercepJons.com, Jan. 13 2012 Baker, BreZ. Painters’ Table: Top 10 Best Posts, January 2012, The Huffington Post, Feb. 13, 2012. 2011 Lauer, David and Pentak, Stephen, Design Basics, 8th ed., Cengage Publishing. 2008 Goings on About Town, The New Yorker Magazine, September 8, p. 12. Lauer, David & Pentak, Stephen. Design Basics, Thomson Wadsworth, p. 152. 2004 Sundell, Ivy, ed., Living ArJsts, Crosswoods Press, Chicago, IL. 2003 Naves, Mario, A Quiet Facility Thrills: SJll Lifes with a Del Touch, The New York Observer, NYC, September 22 2000 Low, Stuart. New Takes on What’s Real?, Democrat & Chronicle, Rochester, NY, Jan. 12 1999 Low, Stuart. ArJsts Get Real with Gallery Show, Democrat & Chronicle, Rochester, NY, Dec. 12 1997 Buchholz, Barbara. Licht Reinvents the SJll Life, The Chicago Tribune, Sept. 19 New American PainJngs, Open Studios Press, Aug. 1995 Heisler, Eva. NegaJve Space Has Weight in SJll Lifes, The Columbus Dispatch, January 29. 1987 Taylor, Sue. Licht Confronts Life’s Pain, The Chicago Sun-‐Times, Aug 14. 1984 Speyer, A. James. ArJsts of Chicago & Vicinity catalog, Art InsJtute of Chicago. 1983 Kenny, Lorraine. Randolph St. Gallery ExhibiJon Review, The New Art Examiner.
LECTURES & PANELS 2013 Pennsylvania College of Art & Design, Panel Member, ReflecJons, Feb. 2010 Lancaster Museum of Art, Panel Member, The Common Object, Feb. 2009 Nassau County Museum of Art Collectors, Studio Visit, Oct. 2006 Memorial Art Gallery, Lecture, 2nd Rochester Biennial ExhibiJon, July 2004 Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Lectures, Sept. & Dec. 2000 State University of New York at Brockport, Lecture, Oct. Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY, Lecture, June 1996 Columbus College of Art & Design, Columbus, OH, Lecture, Feb. 1995 Denison University, Granville, OH, Lecture, Feb. 1994 Ohio State University University, Lecture, May Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, Lecture, Apr. 1992 Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI, Lecture, Oct.
529 W. 20th St., Ste. 6W New York, NY 10011 www.markelfinearts.com