EIGHT • ONE • NINE

PATRICK BERRAN
With solo projects Joshua Smith, “Three Paintings,” Edward Schexnayder, “Semaphore”

4 October – 10 November, 2013

SOUTHFIRST is proud to present “Eight • One • Nine,” an exhibition of new paintings, by Patrick Berran.

Also on view are solo projects by Joshua Smith and Edward Schexnayder. The show is on view from 4

October – 10 November, 2013.

Patrick Berran’s paintings are palimpsests. For “Eight • One • Nine,” over a very soft, glowing and

colorful underpainting Berran layers images from his 2012-13 travel sketchbooks, using Xerox transfer

across the face of the paintings. The resulting images stage a paradoxical relationship between depth

(the paint) and surface (the transfer technique). In the work the tonality of Albert Pinkham Ryder meets

the Nouveau Réalisme of Raymond Hains' poster work from the 1950s. The process relates to Berran’s

background as a musician; Berran was a vocalist in a punk band, during which time Xeroxing and

postering were the primary means of announcing a show.

For his first solo project at Southfirst, painter Joshua Smith puts on view three of his signature 20 x 16"

monochrome paintings, each a different shade of blue.

Edward Schexnayder’s “Semaphore” consists of a monochrome looped television image, a shelf of

DVDs and two large-format paintings, elements connected by the notion of the breakdown of digital images.

He writes: "[Semaphore] was an early form of telegraphy that used flags, both mechanically and by hand,

to convey information over distances. It is also used as a term in computer programming for data that

bridges and/or controls several different inputs or processes.”

Patrick Berran is a painter living and working in Brooklyn, NY. He graduated Virginia Commonwealth

University with a BFA in painting and printmaking in 2002 and Hunter College’s MFA program in 2006.

In 2005 he received a GRAF Travel grant from Hunter College and completed a two-week study in Berlin,

Germany under the artist Franz Ackermann. From 2004-2009 Patrick was the lead vocalist in the punk band

¡Apeshit!, touring internationally as well as the United States; in 2006 they played at the Rirkrit Tiravanija

and Mark di Suvero Peace Tower in conjunction with the Whitney Biennial. He has exhibited his work at

numerous venues in NY and the US, most notably Southfirst and Edward Thorpe Galleries in New York,

Playing Fields at Indiana University, Informal Relations at the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art

and Thomas Robertello Gallery in Chicago. He has recently completed artist residencies at the Constance

Saltonstall in Ithaca, NY as well as the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Amherst, VA. In 2012

Berran was named one of Modern Painters’100 Artists to Watch.

Joshua Smith is a painter based in Brooklyn. His work has been exhibited in solo presentations at Shoot the

Lobster, West Street Gallery, Art Production Fund and John Connelly Presents alongside group exhibitions at

Cleopatra's, Essex Flowers, White Flag Projects, Eleven Rivington, Nicole Klagsbrun, The Journal Gallery,

Clifton Benevento, MoMA PS1, White Columns, Artists Space, Printed Matter, Gavin Brown's Enterprise,

Frank Elbaz and Anton Kern Gallery. He will be included in a survey of recent American art at Milan’s

Brand New Gallery in November. He is, along with several other young artists, a cofounder of Essex Flowers,

an exhibition space on the Lower East Side, and was a founder, with Denise Kupferschmidt, of Apartment

Show, an itinerant series of exhibitions that took place in New York from 2009 to 2010.

Born in Gallup, New Mexico, Edward Schexnayder holds an MFA from Pratt, and was a 2008 Studio Fellow

at the Whitney Independent Study Program. He has held residencies in Art in General’s Eastern Europe

Residency Exchange Program in Zagreb, Croatia, and a NYFA artist fellowship. His work has recently

appeared in exhibitions at Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, and

Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles. He lives and works in Brooklyn.