Reading in Color: Bartley by Page Bond Gallery

MARY ELLEN BARTLEY

R E A D I N G I N C O LO R

PAGE BOND GALLERY 804-359-3633 pagebondgallery.com © Page Bond Gallery 2022

MARY ELLEN BARTLEY REA DI N G I N COLOR 2022

Reading Color #30 (Detail), 2019 (Cover) 3

MARY ELLEN BARTLEY Reading in Color

Bartley’s book portraits as subject matter are well known. Reading In Color explores the tactile and formal qualities of printed “pulp” paperback books– a word that connotes both the content and material of the physical pages. Drawn to their formal qualities and aesthetic as intellectual objects, Bartley has used books in her compositions since 2004. Over the years she has worked with various libraries and collections to source books for her series, including Jackson Pollock’s personal collection, as well as the Beale women of Grey Gardens. For Reading in Color, Bartley sourced her collection of “pulp” from The Strand, a beloved independent bookstore in New York City. Searching through the bins of fortyeight-cent paperbacks for “pulp”, Bartley amassed hundreds of titles belonging to this popular American mass-marketed genre. As still life compositions, her works oscillate between abstraction, sculptural assemblage and color studies; as photographs, they exist as portraits of hidden histories and repurposed fiction in their segments of color.

Opposite Page Summer Reading #10 (Detail), 2019 4

Summer Reading #3, 2019 Pigment print Edition 7/7 13 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 6

Summer Reading #6, 2019 Pigment print Edition 5/7 13 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 8

Summer Reading #7, 2019 Pigment print Edition 7/7 13 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 10

Summer Reading #8, 2019 Pigment print Edition 3/7 13 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 12

Summer Reading #10, 2019 Pigment print Edition 1/7 13 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 14

Reading Color #15, 2019 Pigment print Edition 6/7 13 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 16

Reading Color #16, 2019 Pigment print Edition 7/7 13 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 18

Reading Color #18, 2020 Pigment print Edition 5/7 13 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 20

Reading Color #19, 2020 Pigment print Edition 5/7 13 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 22

Reading Color #21, 2020 Pigment print Edition 7/7 13 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 24

Reading Color #23, 2020 Pigment print Edition 4/7 13 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 26

Reading Color #24, 2020 Pigment print Edition 6/7 13 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 28

Reading Color #25, 2020 Pigment print Edition 5/7 13 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 30

Reading Color #27, 2020 Pigment print Edition 4/7 18 x 13 inches $3400 unframed 32

Reading Color #29, 2020 Pigment print Edition 2/7 13 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 34

Reading Color #30, 2020 Pigment print Edition 7/7 13 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 36

Reading Color #31, 2020 Pigment print Edition 3/7 13 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 38

Reading Color #32, 2020 Pigment print Edition 3/7 13 x 18 inches $3400 unframed 40

MARY ELLEN BARTLEY Abbreviated CV Education BFA, Purchase College, SUNY Exhibitions 2022 The Image Gardeners, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, CA The Image and the Photographic Allusion, Oakland University Art Gallery, Rochester, MI 2021 Still Life/ Life Still, Highland Center for the Arts, Greensboro, VT Summer Reading, Center for Book Arts, New York, NY Scene in a Library, Penumbra Foundation, New York, NY (solo) Photographs, Mary Ellen Bartley, Adam Bartos, Laurie Lambrecht, The Drawing Room, East Hampton, NY 2020 Volumes, Galerie Pugliese Levi, Berlin, Germany (solo) Reading in Color, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA (solo) Return to Summer Reading, The Drawing Room, East Hampton, NY (solo) 2020 Vision, Southampton Arts Center, Southampton, NY Interpretation, Studio 11, East Hampton, NY 7 Things Again and Again, Yancey Richardson, online exhibition viewing room (solo) The Armory Show 2020, New York, NY Vision 2020, Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM View Find 9, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA 2019 Reading in Color, Yancey Richardson Gallery, NY (solo) Qualities of Light, Center for Creative Photography, Tuscon, AZ What is an Edition Anyway?, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, CA Parrish Perspectives, Recent Acquisitions in Context, Parrish Art Museum, Watermill, NY Recess, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA 2018 Interventions, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York Spirit of Place, The Drawing Room, East Hampton, NY Picture: Books, Greensboro Project Space, Greensboro, NC 2017 La Mère, La Mer, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, CA Mary Ellen Bartley: Reading Grey Gardens, The Drawing Room, East Hampton, NY (solo) Library Copies, Studio 5, The Queens Museum, New York (solo installation) Deception, Filter Space, Chicago, Illinois Art of the Book, Seager/ Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA Spring Installation, The Drawing Room, East Hampton, NY View Find 6, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, Virginia 2016 Ordinary Pictures, The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN Lux: The Radiant Sea, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York Mary Ellen Bartley: Looking Between the Covers, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA Mary Ellen Bartley: Still Books, Anzenberger Gallery, Vienna, Austria (solo) The Tactile Eye, Project Space, Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY (solo) The Lives of Books, Dina Mitrani Gallery, Miami, Florida Water/ Bodies, Southampton Arts Center, Southampton, NY, curator: Eric Fischl A Field Guide to Nowhere, Brock University, Ontario, Canada Discoveries of the Meeting Place, Fotofest International Biennial 2016, Houston, TX

2015

Mary Ellen Bartley: Reading Robert Wilson, The Watermill Center, Watermill, NY (solo) Winter Salon, The Drawing Room Gallery, East Hampton, NY Off Print Paris, École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France Cielo Perro Lobo, National Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, Guatemala City, Guatemala Burning with Desire, Curious Duke Gallery, London, UK

Grants, Residencies and Honors New York Foundation for the Arts, Project Grant, 2021 Museo Morandi, Visiting Artist, Bologna, Italy winter 2020 Penumbra Foundation, Publication Collaboration, Penumbra Library Project, 2019, New York, NY The Pollock Krasner House and Study Center, Visiting Artist, Winter 2018, Springs, NY Queens Museum, Reanimation Library, Visiting Artist, January-April 2017, Queens, NY Visual Studies Workshop, Project Room Artist in Residence, April 2016, Rochester, NY Watermill Center, Artist in Residence, February 2015, Watermill, NY Fotobook Festival Kassel, 2015 Book Dummy Award, Reading Robert Wilson shortlisted. Photolucida Critical Mass 2013 Top 50 Photographers Photolucida Critical Mass 2012 Top 50 Photographers Photolucida Critical Mass 2011 Top 50 Photographers A First Place Lucie International Photo Award for Artists and Models series, 2012 Collections Center for Creative Photography, Tuscon, AZ Guild Hall Art Museum, East Hampton, NY McEvoy Family Collection, San Francisco, CA Parrish Art Museum, Watermill, NY The Watermill Collection, Watermill, NY Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota Publications ‘la mère la mer’ exhibition catalog, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, CA, 2019 Ordinary Pictures, exhibition catalog, Walker Art Center, 2016 Fotograf, #29 contemplation, “Mary Ellen Bartley, Between the Spiritual and the Abstract” by Pavel Banka, volume 16, 2017, Prague, CZ The Tactile Eye, by Mary Ellen Bartley, twelve page insert in Afterimage, The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism, Volume 44 Nos 1&2, Summer 2016 Reading Robert Wilson, hand-bound artist book, 2015 Mary Ellen Bartley: Leaning Above the Page, Interview with Ross Bleckner, Guild Hall Museum exhibition catalog, 2014 20 Now: Contemporary Photographers, Nagasaki Shaw and Summer Hung, 2012

MARY ELLEN BARTLEY READING IN COLOR

Catalog Design Kirsten Hemrich, Registrar For Inquiries, please email us at page@pagebondgallery.com