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219 Bowery, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10002
212 594 0550
Founded in 2010, Cristin Tierney Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located on The Bowery with a deep commitment to the presentation, development and support of a roster of both established and emerging artists. Its program emphasizes artists engaged with critical theory and art history, with an emphasis on conceptual, video, and performance art. Education and audience engagement is central to our mission.
Artists Represented:
Melanie Baker
Janet Biggs
Claudia Bitrán
François Bucher
Victor Burgin
peter campus
Joe Fig
Julian V.L. Gaines
MK Guth
Malia Jensen
Alois Kronschlaeger
Shaun Leonardo
Joan Linder
Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins
T. Kelly Mason
Maureen O'Leary
Dread Scott
Mark Sengbusch
Jorge Tacla
Francisco Ugarte
John Wood and Paul Harrison
Tim Youd
Works Available By:
Melanie Baker
Janet Biggs
Claudia Bitrán
François Bucher
Victor Burgin
peter campus
Joe Fig
Julian V.L. Gaines
MK Guth
Malia Jensen
Alois Kronschlaeger
Shaun Leonardo
Joan Linder
Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins
T. Kelly Mason
Maureen O'Leary
Dread Scott
Mark Sengbusch
Jorge Tacla
Francisco Ugarte
John Wood and Paul Harrison
Tim Youd

 

 
Installation view of Joan Linder and Maureen O'Leary: Slightly Surreal Suburbia. Photograph by Elisabeth Bernstein.
Installation view of Joan Linder and Maureen O'Leary: Slightly Surreal Suburbia. Photograph by Elisabeth Bernstein.
Installation view of Joan Linder and Maureen O'Leary: Slightly Surreal Suburbia. Photograph by Elisabeth Bernstein.
Installation view of Joan Linder and Maureen O'Leary: Slightly Surreal Suburbia. Photograph by Elisabeth Bernstein.
Installation view of Joan Linder and Maureen O'Leary: Slightly Surreal Suburbia. Photograph by Elisabeth Bernstein.
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Past Exhibitions

David Opdyke

Waiting for the Future



March 14, 2025 - April 26, 2025
Cristin Tierney Gallery is pleased to present Waiting for the Future, a solo exhibition of new works by David Opdyke. This is the artist's first solo show at the gallery and his first solo exhibition in New York since his 2022 presentation at the Climate Museum. The exhibition opens Friday, March 14th and will be on view through April 26th, 2025. The artist will be present at the opening reception on March 14th from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. Characterized by its meticulous attention to detail and use of found objects, David Opdyke’s practice interrogates globalization, consumerism, and humanity’s fraught relationship with the environment. Since 2016, he has used hand-modified landscape postcards, transforming nostalgic imagery into pointed commentaries on climate change and its impact on the American landscape and politics. Through these carefully altered compositions, Opdyke merges the past and the future, presenting both urgent and inevitable visions of environmental upheaval. Sourcing hundreds of vintage souvenir postcards from eBay, Opdyke constructs large-scale landscapes showing evolving environmental disasters. The compositions are fractured yet cohesive topographies—amalgamations of mountains, rivers, cities, and infrastructure, all subtly or catastrophically altered by climate change. In Waiting for the Future, his latest works render a landscape in flux, where wildfires blaze, floods encroach upon urban centers, and ecological imbalances unexpectedly take shape. Once symbols of idealized American progress, these postcards now stand as cautionary tales, revealing the fragility of the environment we have constructed. Overlook (2025) exemplifies Opdyke’s recent work. A grid of antique aerial-view postcards presents familiar landscapes—idyllic coastlines, sprawling cities, and lush parks. Yet, on closer inspection, unsettling anomalies emerge: rising waters encroach upon once-thriving metropolises, giant tentacles tear bridges apart, skyscrapers protrude from the ocean like relics of lost civilizations, and fires rage unchecked at the edges. There is also techno-utopianism: a giant dome encloses a city; airplanes trail banners saying, “Technology Will Save Us” and “The Dome: Secure Your Spot;” and a rocket labeled “Mars 2” blasts off as a crowd assembles below in formation, spelling out the message “Take Us Too.” Nature reclaims what humanity has abandoned in some areas, while industrial infrastructure clings desperately to existence in others. This interplay between destruction and adaptation underscores Opdyke’s recurring themes—environmental complacency, the illusion of permanence, and the consequences of inaction. Opdyke’s exploration of these themes also extends into animation. In 2024, The WNET Group’s ALL ARTS commissioned him to produce a 30-minute animated film, also titled Waiting for the Future, which will premiere on Tuesday, April 8th, 2025, at 8:00 PM (EDT). The film weaves together early 20th-century postcards with contemporary anxieties. Drawing inspiration from filmmaker Terry Gilliam’s cut-paper animations and writer Samuel Beckett’s existential inquiries, the film illustrates the contemporary American Anthropocene and atension between nostalgia and impending crisis. “Taking a cold look at the ‘good old days’ is necessary but unsettling,” Opdyke states. “It challenges our faith in progress and forces us to consider whether we face our future with collective action or cynical resignation.” Waiting for the Future offers a stark meditation on environmental collapse and societal inertia. While its premise is fatalistic, the exhibition’s dystopian landscapes carry an implicit hope that recognition might inspire change. Through his intricate reconstructions of history and fate, Opdyke compels us to confront what we stand to lose—and what we might still preserve. David Opdyke's (b. 1969, Schenectady, NY) work explores globalization, consumerism, and civilization’s abusive relationship with the environment. In 2022, he collaborated with the Climate Museum in its first pop-up exhibition in Soho. In 2020, Phaidon published a book based on his large-scale postcard project, This Land, including essays by Lawrence Weschler and Maya Wiley. Opdyke’s work has been exhibited at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Wright Museum, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Museum of Arts and Design, Krannert Art Museum, and North Dakota Museum of Art, among others. His work is held in public collections internationally, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Deutsche Bank Collection, Louisiana State University Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Wake Forest University Art Museum, Washington Convention Center Authority, Pardon Collection, and more. The artist lives and works in Queens, NY. Founded in 2010, Cristin Tierney Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located on The Bowery with a deep commitment to the presentation, development, and support of a roster of both established and emerging artists. Its program emphasizes artists engaged with critical theory and art history, with an emphasis on conceptual, video, and performance art. Education and audience engagement is central to our mission. Cristin Tierney Gallery is a member of the ADAA (Art Dealers Association of America).

Diane Burko

Bearing Witness



January 31, 2025 - March 8, 2025
Cristin Tierney Gallery is pleased to present Bearing Witness, a solo exhibition of new and recent mixed-media paintings by Diane Burko. The exhibition opens Friday, January 31st with a reception from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, and will be on view through March 8, 2025. This marks Burko's first solo exhibition in New York in over forty years and her debut solo show at the gallery. The artist will be present at the opening reception. Driven by endless curiosity and an unwavering commitment to environmental preservation, Burko has spent five decades "bearing witness" to the realities of climate change. Her work offers a visual record of these investigations, drawing on visits to extreme environments worldwide-from the Arctic to the Amazon, coral reefs to deserts. The paintings in Bearing Witness reflect this journey, channeling her observations into emotionally charged works that seek to inspire global solidarity in defense of our shared ecosystem. Through her art, Burko combines aesthetic experience with scientific and personal narratives. She augments her practice with public engagement, weaving facts and stories into the viewing experience to deepen its impact. By imbuing her work with a sense of authenticity and purpose, she aspires to spark civic awareness and action. Burko's World Glacier and World Reef series are central to the exhibition, with their focus on the escalating effects of climate change. In her studio, the artist painted works from both series on opposite walls, allowing her to draw connections between them. The Reef series captures the devastation wrought by warming seawater and coral bleaching. In contrast, paintings from the Glacier series, such as Glacier Map 1 (2019), depict the alarming retreat of ice as seas encroach on glaciers. Layers of blue and black acrylic and crackle paint evoke melting ice and rising waters, while faint, map-like lines allude to the scientific data underpinning her work. Burko employs techniques like pouring, sanding, and air-compressing paint to create textured surfaces that echo the fragility of the natural world. "I struggle to use the language of paint to develop new vocabulary-to create visual poetry that draws you in, compels you to look closely, and then reveals some ugly truths," Burko explains. These "ugly truths" emerge in Bearing Witness through works that fuse collaged elements with expressive abstraction. By juxtaposing beauty with adversity, Burko makes the pressing threat of climate change feel both urgent and personal. At its core, Burko's practice is about paying homage to a changing Earth while sounding a call to action. Yet her art transcends this mission; it moves beyond reason, propelled by a sensibility that transforms scientific data and environmental loss into an expressive, emotional experience. Diane Burko's (b. 1945, New York, NY) work in painting, photography, and time-based media considers the marks that human conversations make on the landscape. A Professor Emerita of the Community College of Philadelphia with additional teaching experience at Princeton University, Burko has received multiple grants from the NEA, the Pennsylvania Arts Council, the Leeway Foundation, and the Independence Foundation. She has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women's Caucus for Art. After focusing for several decades on monumental geological formations and waterways through landscape painting, Burko has shifted in the past 20 years to analyze the impact of industrial and colonial activity on those same landscapes. The artist's practice seeks to visually emulsify interconnected subjects-extraction, deforestation, extinction, environmental justice, Indigenous genocide, ecological degradation, and climate collapse-so viewers might feel their connection viscerally through the beauty of her work. While her work deals with impending climate catastrophe, rather than lingering in dystopia, it celebrates the landscape's sublimity by honoring the intricate geological and political webs that shape the identity of a place. Burko has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally, including shows at London's Royal Academy of Art, Minneapolis Art Institute, National Academy of Sciences, Phillips Collection, RISD Museum, Tang Museum, and Wesleyan University Center for the Arts. She has been awarded residencies in Giverny, Bellagio, the Arctic Circle, and the Amazon Rainforest. In 2021, her solo exhibition Seeing Climate Change at the American University Museum was cited in the New York Times as one of the best shows of 2021. Her work is held in 40 public collections nationwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Denver Art Museum, Everson Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Phillips Collection, and The Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others. Burko's studio is located in Philadelphia, PA. Founded in 2010, Cristin Tierney Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located on The Bowery with a deep commitment to the presentation, development, and support of a roster of both established and emerging artists. Its program emphasizes artists engaged with critical theory and art history, with an emphasis on conceptual, video, and performance art. Education and audience engagement is central to our mission. Cristin Tierney Gallery is a member of the ADAA (Art Dealers Association of America).

Audra Skuodas

Vibrational Vulnerability



October 25, 2024 - January 17, 2025
Cristin Tierney Gallery is pleased to announce Vibrational Vulnerability, a solo exhibition of rarely seen paintings and drawings from the estate of Audra Skuodas. This is the artist's first solo exhibition with the gallery and the first presentation of her work in New York in over fifteen years. Vibrational Vulnerability opens on Friday, October 25th, with a reception from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. The exhibition will be on view through December 14th, 2024. Skuodas epitomizes the "under-recognized artist." Virtually unknown to a larger audience throughout her life, her oeuvre found greater attention only after her death when it was prominently featured in the 2022 Cleveland Triennial: Front. Over the past several years, museums such as the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, and the Cleveland Museum of Art have begun acquiring and exhibiting her work. A major museum is planning a retrospective exhibition with a publication. Despite a lifetime of relative obscurity, Skuodas' work resonates with profound depth and a distinctive voice that challenges conventional boundaries of perception and form. Perpetually experimenting with materials, she explored beads, sequins, and vibrant fabrics, creating rigid and soft sculptures alongside quilts, books, and jewelry. Her paintings and drawings--initially aligned with Surrealism and before transitioning to abstraction starting in the 1980s--are where she gained renown the most. Vibrational Vulnerability features figurative and abstract paintings, works on paper, and unique stitched drawings from her Womb Wound series. As a soul-searcher who studied science, mysticism, and Eastern religions, Skuodas sought to convey universality in her art. She blended geometric form with emotional intelligence and the feminine. In her later years, Skuodas' thinking was informed by what she called "the law of limits: that invisible phenomenon of tension and attraction which maintains the cosmic order." Emblematic of Skuodas' quest for knowledge, the paintings in Vibrational Vulnerability combine scientific inquiry with mystical introspection. They beckon the viewer into a contemplative space where alternative narratives and perspectives converge, urging them to reconsider their relationship with the cosmos and our place within it. Audra Skuodas (1940-2019) was born in Lithuania and lived for six years in a displaced persons camp in Germany before coming to the U.S. in 1949. She became a US citizen in 1961 and earned a B.A. and M.A. at Northern Illinois University. She taught and exhibited her work throughout her career, and was associated with institutions such as the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and Oberlin College. She exhibited in Chicago with Richard Gray, and in New York with Moti Hassan, as well as at regional spaces in the Cleveland area. In 2010, she received the Cleveland Arts Prize Lifetime Achievement Award. Founded in 2010, Cristin Tierney Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located on The Bowery with a deep commitment to the presentation, development, and support of a roster of both established and emerging artists. Its program emphasizes artists engaged with critical theory and art history, with an emphasis on conceptual, video, and performance art. Education and audience engagement is central to our mission.

Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos)

milk and honey



September 6, 2024 - October 19, 2024
May 12, 2024 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Mauricio García-Miró Jeri, mauricio@cristintierney.com or 212.594.0550 Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos) milk and honey September 6 – October 19, 2024 Opening Reception: Friday, September 6, 6:00 to 8:00 pm 219 Bowery, Floor 2 New York, NY 10002 Cristin Tierney Gallery is pleased to announce milk and honey, a solo exhibition of new and recent work by Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos). This is the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York and with the gallery. Concurrently with this exhibition, Siestreem’s work will be featured at The Armory Show in a special joint presentation with Elizabeth Leach Gallery. milk and honey opens on Friday, September 6th, with a reception from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. The artist will be present. Siestreem is an Oregon-based multidisciplinary artist and member of the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians. Her work combines the ceremonial traditions of her ancestors with contemporary modes and materials nested at the intersection of social and ecological justice, education, and Indigenous feminism. Her process is informed by observations of nature within a formal structure and improvisational practice. Highlighted in milk and honey are Siestreem’s paintings that combine hard-edge geometric weaving patterns, collage elements, and gestural paint handling. One, titled un-ring bells, is eight feet wide and eleven years in the making. It features dynamic black, white, natural wood, and red shapes overlaid with graphite lines and expressive, dripped paint. The work also contains collaged lithographs of found objects; a Pyrex lid with a broken string of Cobalt trade beads, a fortune cookie message reading, "share your fortune with others, it will bring you good luck,” an empty Dansk dish, and her petroglyph-style mark-making. Xeroxed photo transfers of extinct Indigenous oyster shells are also placed throughout the work. In recent years, these oysters have emerged from eroded middens adjacent to traditional village sites in the Coos Bay estuary. These ancient oyster beds and villages were destroyed by the colonization of the bay, beginning in the 1800s. The carefully arranged shells serve as a memorial for what has been lost and a warning of ongoing colonial violence against the land and its inhabitants. In her "minion" sculptures, Siestreem ruminates about social justice, specifically as related to gender equality and women’s rights. She sees these works as protectors that simultaneously uplift the good and punish the bad. Slip-cast models of dance caps are adorned with meticulously strung (Indigo-dyed cotton) strands of red, luminous glass beads, abalone (commonly seen throughout Indigenous regalia), and found buttons, creating ethereal forms that transcend time and space. The beadwork catches the movement of air created by the audience's bodies and gently sways, activating an informal ceremony between the artwork and the viewer. The intertwined strands of beads speak to the interconnectedness of Indigenous people across generations and into the future. Through these works, the artist contributes to the tradition of Indigenous contemporary fine art created on this land mass, steeped in and for a multicultural world. They serve as channels of remembrance, resistance, and dreams of a future of opulence, abundance, and equality. “Art is a historic record and public education, an expression of cultural authority, and an act of love. I hope my people see themselves in mine, and that it brings them joy.” - Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos) In September, Siestreem’s work will be featured at The Armory Show in a special joint presentation by Cristin Tierney Gallery and Elizabeth Leach Gallery. The art fair will open the same week as milk and honey. Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos, b. 1976, Springfield, OR) is a multidisciplinary artist from the Umpqua River Valley on the South Coast of Oregon, working in painting, photography, printmaking, weaving, and large-scale installation. She was awarded the University of Oregon’s 2022-23 CFAR Fellowship and the 2022 Forge Project Fellowship, which recognized her as one of six Indigenous individuals representing a broad diversity of cultural practices, participatory research, organizing models, and geographic contexts that honor Indigenous pasts and build Native futures. Her work, which has been exhibited internationally, is in many collections, including the Gochman Family Foundation (Miami, FL), Forge Project (Mahicannituck [Hudson River] Valley, NY), Missoula Art Museum (MT), Museum of Fine Art (Boston, MA), and the Portland Art Museum (OR). Siestreem’s work was recently included in the landmark 2023 book An Indigenous Present, conceived and edited by Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Choctaw/Cherokee). Coming from a family of professional artists and educators, she began her training at home. Her lifelong mentor is Lillian Pitt (Wasco, Warm Springs, Yakama), and her weaving teachers are Greg Archuleta (Grand Ronde) and Greg A. Robinson (Chinook Nation). Siestreem graduated Phi Kappa Phi with a BS from Portland State University in 2005. She earned an MFA with distinction from Pratt Art Institute in 2007. She created a self-sustaining weaving program for the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw people. She lives and works in Portland, Oregon, and is represented by the Elizabeth Leach Gallery. Founded in 2010, Cristin Tierney Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located on The Bowery with a deep commitment to the presentation, development, and support of a roster of both established and emerging artists. Its program emphasizes artists engaged with critical theory and art history, with an emphasis on conceptual, video, and performance art. Education and audience engagement are central to our mission. Cristin Tierney Gallery is a member of the ADAA (Art Dealers Association of America). Image Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos), un-ring bells, 2013-2024. Acrylic, gesso, graphite, colored pencil, logging crayon, Xerox transfer, lithograph collage on panel. 72 x 96 inches (182.9 x 243.8 cm). Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos), M(sweet)sixteen, 2023. Four glazed slip cast ceramic dance caps, abalone, plastic buttons, Czech white heart beads, indigo (Linton) dyed and woven industrial cotton cording, canvas and thread. Approx: Each: 72 x 8 x 11 inches (182.9 x 20.3 x 27.9 cm). Overall: 72 x 80 x 11 inches (182.9 x 203.2 x 27.9 cm). Courtesy of Cristin Tierney Gallery, New York, NY, and Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR. Inquiries Mauricio García-Miró Jeri, mauricio@cristintierney.com, 212.594.0500

Joan Linder

Fulfillment



June 21, 2024 - August 9, 2024
Cristin Tierney Gallery is pleased to present Fulfillment, a solo exhibition of new and recent work by Joan Linder. The exhibition opens Friday, June 21st with a reception from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, and will be on view through August 2nd. Fulfillment marks Linder’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. She will be present at the opening reception. Fulfillment is a multimedia installation that examines aspects of the “hidden-in-plain-sight” landscapes of e-commerce, cloud computing, and crypto-mining, as well as the legal contracts that bind us to these technological systems. Both horrified and fascinated by the dematerialized digital systems of transaction and communication, Linder uses pen and paper to critically reconnect the digital world to one of tangible nature. Fulfillment includes the artist’s drawings, video and sculptures. Linder largely draws from observation. For this exhibition, she visited e-commerce sites in Buffalo and Niagara, NY. On each of her trips, the artist drew the sites while sitting in her parked car outside the buildings. The resulting body of work consists of accordion books of drawings of crypto-mining warehouses, cloud computing server farms, fulfillment centers, and surrounding neighborhoods in Buffalo. The landscapes will be accompanied by a selection of hand-drawn text facsimiles of “terms of service” and “email communications” with ubiquitous digital platforms, such as Amazon and Meta. Completing the exhibition are Linder’s handmade paper reproductions of discarded Amazon shipping boxes. Made from ink, paint and watercolor on archival cotton paper, the boxes are life-size and form near-perfect replicas of the actual objects. Each box carries marks that trace and reflect their material history, from supply chain to fulfillment center to user. In examining the multiple components of the e- commerce supply chain, Fulfillment highlights the heavy physical toll carried by our digital behaviors. Joan Linder (b. 1970, Ossining, NY) is known for her labor-intensive drawings that contain thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of tiny lines. She has exhibited at Albright College, Faulconer Gallery at Grinnell College, Queens Museum of Art at Bulova Corporate Center, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Omi International Art Center, Institute of the Humanities at University of Michigan, Sun Valley Art Center, University of the Arts, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, Handwerker Gallery at Ithaca College and more. Linder’s work is held in the collections of Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Davis Museum, Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, Progressive Corporation, The New York Department of Education, Ewing Gallery of Art at University of Tennessee, The West Collection, Orange County Museum of Art, The Gwangju Art Museum, and the Zabludowicz Collection. She studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from Tufts University. Among her many awards and fellowships are residencies at MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Smack Mellon, Ucross Foundation, Art Omi, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, plus a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant. The artist maintains a studio in Buffalo, NY. Founded in 2010, Cristin Tierney Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located on The Bowery with a deep commitment to the presentation, development, and support of a roster of both established and emerging artists. Its program emphasizes artists engaged with critical theory and art history, with an emphasis on conceptual, video, and performance art. Education and audience engagement is central to our mission. Cristin Tierney Gallery is a member of the ADAA (Art Dealers Association of America).

Roger Shimomura

All American



April 26, 2024 - June 8, 2024
Cristin Tierney Gallery is pleased to present All American, a solo exhibition of paintings by Roger Shimomura. The exhibition opens Friday, April 26 and will be on view through June 8, 2024. This is the artist's first solo exhibition in New York in over a decade and his first solo show at the gallery. Through juxtaposition of contemporary America and traditional Japan, the artist employs images from both cultures to create a complicated layering of pictorial information and social observation. The paintings in All American are poignant, satirical, playful, and full of outrage, exemplifying Shimomura’s career-long exploration of themes such as xenophobia and cross-cultural tensions. For more than fifty years the artist has been addressing in pictures the subjects that mainstream America is now just finding the language to discuss. Two paintings in particular highlight how popular culture in the United States introduces and reinforces certain Asian stereotypes. Both JAPAN, 2012, and RAMBO II, 1978, illuminate the West’s troubling history of appropriation and commodification of Japanese heritage. The first depicts the iconic Hello Kitty character adapting various conventional Western and Asian identities: baseball players, farmers, geishas, chefs, bakers, and even the Statue of Liberty. Always portrayed expressionless, voiceless (as the character has no mouth), and wearing a large bow, Hello Kitty is docile, passive, and diminutive. RAMBO II—inversely, and as suggested by its title—revolves around violence. The central figure is a Kabuki actor in Kumadori stage makeup playing a theatrical warrior spirit. He is surrounded by traditional ukiyo-e depictions of other characters from Kabuki theater. By giving the work the name RAMBO, Shimomura invites the viewer to see his subjects through the lens of American military machismo. The result further westernizes an image that has long been appropriated by American culture, stripping it of its original meaning. Taking these two works as a point of departure, All American points out the absurdity of two enduring Japanese stereotypes: the bloodthirsty, dangerous warrior and the sex-less, non- threatening cartoon figure. The ludicrousness of these two extremes is highlighted by Shimomura’s use of the cynical, dispassionate style of pop art. Forgoing any expressive flourishes, Shimomura shines a cold light on offensive images, and asks us not to look away. Roger Shimomura’s (b. 1939, Seattle, WA) paintings, prints, and theater pieces address sociopolitical Japanese American issues of ethnicity. He spent more than two years of his early childhood in internment camps for Japanese Americans during WWII. In 1962, Shimomura was a distinguished military graduate from the University of Washington, Seattle, and then served as a field artillery officer with the First Cavalry Division in Korea. He received his M.F.A. from Syracuse University, New York in 1969 and began teaching at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS that same year. He has had over 150 solo exhibitions of his paintings and prints and has presented his experimental theater pieces at such venues as the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; and Franklin Furnace, New York. Shimomura is the recipient of more than 30 grants, of which four are National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in Painting and Performance Art. In the fall of 1990, he held an appointment as the Dayton Hudson Distinguished Visiting Professor at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota. Shimomura has been a visiting artist and lectured on his work at more than 200 universities, art schools, and museums across the country. In 2004 he retired from teaching and started the Shimomura Faculty Research Support Fund, an endowment to foster faculty research in the Department of Art. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of the Arts degree from The University of Kansas in 2021. Shimomura is in the permanent collections of over 125 museums nationwide including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum; Museum of American Art, Washington, DC; and the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Founded in 2010, Cristin Tierney Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located on The Bowery with a deep commitment to the presentation, development, and support of a roster of both established and emerging artists. Its program emphasizes artists engaged with critical theory and art history, with an emphasis on conceptual, video, and performance art. Education and audience engagement is central to our mission. Cristin Tierney Gallery is a member of the ADAA (Art Dealers Association of America).

Debbi Kenote and Mark Sengbusch

Cross Cut



March 8, 2024 - April 20, 2024
Cristin Tierney Gallery is pleased to present Cross Cut, an exhibition of new work by Debbi Kenote and Mark Sengbusch. Cross Cut, which features both artists' individual explorations of the language of sculpture through painting, opens Friday, March 8th with a reception from 6:00 to 8:00 pm and continues through April 20th. This marks Kenote’s first and Sengbusch’s second exhibition with the gallery. Both artists will be present at the reception. “Cross Cut is a nice metaphor for both of our interests in woodworking and our interaction with the 3D plane while painting. We intersect shapes horizontally, quite often through the act of tiling or joining, something quite unusual for painters. Cross Cut is also used in the sense of taking a journey or cutting through history. While working as contemporary painters in New York City, we both find similar landmarks in history to claim as influences (architecture, craft, as well as over a decade shared in NYC).” - Debbi Kenote & Mark Sengbusch In Cross Cut, both artists focus largely on color and geometry. They are deeply influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement, with a focus on the storytelling potential of media such as textiles, ceramic, and woodworking. Their practices unite abstract forms with an individualized approach to color. Although both artists’ works exhibit naturalistic elements and observations, their newer paintings reveal their fascination with architecture and architectural elements such as tessellations in tiles and sidewalks. Debbi Kenote’s shaped canvases are largely inspired by childhood recollections and her interest in American craft traditions. By hand making her own often complexly shaped stretchers—an assembly process she compares to that of completing a puzzle—she challenges the traditional rectangular painting canvas. Kenote’s research into quilts, weaving, and architecture provides inspiration for the canvas shapes she designs and builds. Once the canvases are dyed, washed, and dried, she stretches the canvas and begins applying acrylic. Much of the shapes and patterns in Kenote’s latest paintings are inspired by her research into Bauhaus weaving and the landscape of the Pacific Northwest, while her colors reference observed shades from nature, particularly fungi—a recent interest of hers. Mark Sengbusch’s tiled works represent the artist’s return to painting after five years spent primarily concentrating on sculpture. The wood tiles in these works are painted and placed in specific patterns that reference ancient ceramic tiles and stone work. The colors in Blue Waves, for example, are inspired by 700-year-old Iranian tiles observed by the artist at the Abu Dhabi Louvre. Sengbusch describes the sensibility of his work as “Pop meets Folk.” Many of the colors and patterns in his work are influenced by “old faded vinyl record covers from the ‘70s, videogames and neon fashion from the ‘90s, ceramic glazes and faded medieval tapestries, bright flowers and graffiti on box trucks in Bushwick.” Sengbusch will also be presenting new sculptures made of wood and aluminum in Cross Cut. Debbi Kenote (b. 1991, Anacortes, WA) has exhibited at galleries internationally, including shows at Kate Werble and Marvin Gardens in New York, Duran|Mashaal Gallery in Montreal, Cob Gallery in London, and Fir Gallery in Beijing. She received her BFA in Painting from Western Washington University and her MFA in Sculpture from Brooklyn College. Her work has been on display at several art fairs, including Art Toronto, Art Plural, Future Fair and SPRING/BREAK Art Show. Kenote has been published through Liquitex, Maake Magazine, Elle Magazine, Innovate Grant, Suboart, The Hopper Prize, Art of Choice, and Hyperallergic. Her work has been placed in several collections, including the OZ Art Collection and the Capital One Corporate Collection. She has been an artist in residence at the Ucross Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Saltonstall Foundation, PLOP, Nes Artist Residency, and the Mineral School. In 2022 she was a finalist for the Innovate Grant and in 2021 she was shortlisted for the Hopper Prize. Kenote lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Mark Sengbusch’s (b. 1979, Ravenna, OH) recent shows include a group exhibition at The Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, OR and a solo exhibition at Marvin Gardens Annex in Ridgewood, NY. He received his MFA in Painting from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2008. He has participated in residencies at Byrdcliffe Arts Colony and Vermont Studio Center. He has exhibited with Bushwick’s Transmitter Gallery, Ortega y Gasset Projects in Gowanus, Real Tinsel Gallery in Milwaukee, David Klein Gallery in Detroit, and Hilde in Los Angeles. This is the artist’s second presentation with Cristin Tierney Gallery. Sengbusch lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Founded in 2010, Cristin Tierney Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located on The Bowery with a deep commitment to the presentation, development and support of a roster of both established and emerging artists. Its program emphasizes artists engaged with critical theory and art history, with an emphasis on conceptual, video, and performance art. Education and audience engagement is central to our mission. Cristin Tierney Gallery is a member of the ADAA (Art Dealers Association of America).

Mary Lucier

Leaving Earth



January 18, 2024 - March 2, 2024
Cristin Tierney Gallery is pleased to present Leaving Earth, an exhibition of new video work by Mary Lucier. The exhibition opens Friday, January 19th with a reception from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, and continues through March 2nd. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery and she will be present at the reception. Leaving Earth is a multi-channel video and sound installation inspired by excerpts from the final journal of Lucier’s late husband, the painter Robert Berlind. In this journal, Berlind fearlessly documented his thoughts on his impending death from a terminal illness. His writings reflect his appreciation of life with a remarkable lack of anxiety about the inevitable end—more curiosity than dread. The imagery in Lucier’s work consists of sequences of protean video and still images filmed in both her domestic and working environments. Most were shot after Berlind’s passing, reflecting the world as she experienced it during his final days and after. Berlind’s terse epigraphs appear throughout as white text on a black background, serving as evocative companions to the flow of images in Leaving Earth. pictures already formed more remembrance than presence. Lucier describes this nine-channel installation as one where "words, pictures, and sound become interchangeable, not serving as descriptions but as a rumination on reality and a form of coping." Unlike much of Lucier’s earlier work, it does not follow a synchronous and sequential internal structure, instead allowing for random juxtapositions, repetitive thoughts, and the possibility of chaos to occur, reflecting the potential disarray in the dying man's mind. The pictorial narrative in Leaving Earth is underscored by Berlind's description of his mental state: a succession of discontinuous moments occur then disappear without the elemental structure of sequence And yet . . . I forget to fear death Mary Lucier (b. 1944, Bucyrus, OH) has been noted for her contributions to the form of multi-monitor, multi- channel video installation since the early 1970s. Her work prior to her introduction to video was largely concerned with manipulation of the black and white image through a graphic performative process. She also produced several live performances with the feminist video collective Red White Yellow and Black (along with Shigeko Kubota, Cecilia Sandoval and Charlotte Warren) at the original Kitchen in 1972 and '73. Archival materials from this collective were also exhibited in 2023. Her latest multi-channel video installation Leaving Earth will be exhibited at the Catskill Art Space in the summer of 2024. Lucier's video installations have been shown in major museums and galleries around the world. Many now reside in important collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; the Museum of Modern Art, NY; the Reina Sofia, Madrid; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; the Milwaukee Art Museum; the Columbus Museum of Art, OH; and the National Academy of Design, NY, among others. She has also produced a significant body of single-channel works which have been screened in museums and festivals world-wide. From the austere black and white experiments of the 1970's to recent studies of Japanese Buddhist ceremonies and Dakota Sioux dances, these works acknowledge the influence of both Avant Garde and documentary practices in American art and cinema. Lucier has been the recipient of many awards and fellowships, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, Creative Capital, Anonymous Was a Woman, the Nancy Graves Foundation, USA Artists, the American Film Institute, the Jerome Foundation, the New York State council on the Arts, and the Japan-US Friendship Commission. Her teaching appointments have included the Distinguished Visiting Professor in Art and Art History at UC Davis; Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture; adjunct professor in the department of VES at Harvard University; and Visiting Professor in Video Art at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, among others. She lives and works in New York City and Cochecton, NY, where she has established a studio and archive for video art. Founded in 2010, Cristin Tierney Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located on The Bowery with a deep commitment to the presentation, development, and support of a roster of both established and emerging artists. Its program emphasizes artists engaged with critical theory and art history, with an emphasis on conceptual, video, and performance art. Education and audience engagement is central to our mission. Cristin Tierney Gallery is a member of the ADAA (Art Dealers Association of America).