Casey Kaplan Gallery: An NYC Must Visit

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Casey Kaplan Gallery: An NYC Must Visit

Casey Kaplan Gallery

The Casey Kaplan Gallery, located in the heart of Chelsea, is a hidden gem for visually challenging contemporary art. The Gallery is open for visits, though appointments are heavily encouraged. The Gallery’s founder, Casey Kaplan, is a New York City native who has been in the gallery industry for some 25 years now. 

Beginning as a small shop in Soho, the gallery has moved several times to find its permanent home on West 27th street. Several exhibitions are available for viewing. Two particular artists, Brian Jungen, and Jonathan Gardner, are personal spotlight picks. 

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Jungen and Gardner

Brian Jungen is of Indigenous Dane-zaa heritage, though originally from British Columbia (B.C), Canada. Jungen is also a member of the Doig River First Nations of Northern B.C. Drawing and visual work have been long vital to his identity and work. Pieces like Western Stars and Fever Dream “reflect his ongoing exploration of memory and identity, within a broader context of globalization, ethnocentrism, and commodity culture.”

Jungen’s work primarily employs collage and stamping. His most recent technique includes “cutting shapes from buckskin and leather,” then stamping said scraps and dragging them onto the paper canvas. Moreover, loose and flowing inky drawings create a “cacophony of color, line, and form.”

On the other spectrum of visual work lies Jonathan Gardner. Gardner, a young artist born in Kentucky but working mostly in Chicago and New York, explores techniques of 19th century European art. His highly stylized paintings are his signature. At the Kaplan Gallery’s viewing room lie his most recent charcoal drawings. 

These pieces, like Portal (featured), use graphite on paper to mesh together aspects of the everyday and classical history of art. Most of the pieces are of the female form, depicted through sharp, geometric lines. Gardner “manipulates form using peculiar framing devices with collage techniques to transform quotidian leisurely pursuits into illusory worlds.

Gardner and Jungen showcase a vast array of visual skills, from drawing in charcoal, to reprinting and stamping. Spacious and filled with light, Casey Kaplan’s viewing room is ready for distanced walk-ins. 

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