New @ D Berman

he delicate gouache works on paper in Joseph Phillips’ current body of work are subtly satirical explorations of imagined utopias and play with ideas of land commodification. The works in this series depict pre-fabricated land units that could theoretically be dropped into place in affluent suburban sprawl. Phillips uses a specific and limited palette of soothing colors for his counterfeit environments to reference the consumer aspect of his modular land units, not unlike images in a catalogue.



String Theory (Earth), 2010
gouache, ink & graphite
18 x 24 inches
hawn Smith’s meticulously created and fantastical sculptures present un-natural nature to a society increasingly influenced and reliant on television and computers for a digital window to the natural world. These pixilated, abstracted forms are immediately engaging and seemingly familiar. Smith says, “My conceptual and material practice explores digital identity, color, colliding systems of information, labor, technology, and science. As an object maker, I am interested in relating these concepts back to the symbiotic connection between the hand and the ‘thing.’"


Naturally Competitive Patterns, 2010
Balsa, Bass, acrylic paint, and ink
30 x 24 x 13 inches

The gallery is open for summer hours during August from 12 -5 & by appointment

26 August - 9 October 2010 Joseph Phillips & Shawn Smith Please join us for the opening reception on Thursday, August 26 from 6-8 pm. A gallery talk with the artists will be held on Saturday, September 11 at 1 pm.