Ian Trask

Ian Trask Waste of Space 2018 waste materials 20’ (L) x 20’ (W) x 10’ (H) Site specific installation at the Invisible Dog Art Center in Brooklyn, NY

I am a scientist-turned-artist who received a degree in biology from Bowdoin College in 2005. I worked many years in research labs, but eventually left the world of science to pursue a career in fine art. While transitioning away from lab work I got a job as a hospital groundskeeper cleaning up trash daily, an experience that proved to be formative in my artistic development. I learned to see the potential in garbage and gradually built a creative practice that drew inspiration from the waste streams around me. I choose to create my art from things that are either discarded (or donated by others) in the deliberate effort to let scarcity and access dictate the direction of my work.

www.iantrask.com

Luisa Valderrama

Luisa Valderrama, Hato, Installation, 2018, Dimensions Variable. A 12 ft. high pillar (middle) made out of compressed dirt, responded to the architecture of the space; it had the same dimensions as the columns that held it. Two 4 x 4 ft. boxes (left) with compost emulating the land I grew up in, had a water and a heating system inside that kept the dirt mixture generating smell in the gallery.

Luisa Valderrama was born in Colombia and lives in Brooklyn, New York. She holds an MFA in Sculpture from Pratt Institute with honors (2018), a BFA in Painting and Drawing and a BA in Art History from Los Andes University, Colombia (2014). Her work draws on her autobiographical experience of growing up between the rural region and the urban life in the city of Bogota. She is a recipient of the NYFA 2019 Mentoring Program for Immigrant Artists (NYC) and a 2019 thematic residency at RU-Residency Unlimited (NYC). In 2015 she partook in the itinerant residencies of 4-18 (COL) a nonprofit community-based art organization. She has participated in numerous exhibitions in Colombia and New York and collaborated with 4-18 in Colombia. Solo exhibitions: Hato [’a.to] in Steuben Gallery at Pratt Institute, 2018. Selected projects and group exhibitions include Boiling Point at The Boiler Pierogi in 2018 curated by Regine Basha. Half a Wave at the Pfizer Building in Brooklyn curated by Christine Rebhuhn, 2018; The Latin American Contemporary Fine Art Competition, at Agora Gallery, New York, 2018. Crossing, at El Sótano Art Space, Brooklyn, 2018. And Entramado at Espacio Alterno Gallery curated by Lorenzo Freydell Vanstaseghem., Bogota, Colombia, 2016.

www.luisa-valderrama.com