“All the Smoke”
Group exhibition May 20th - June 24th, 2023Featuring Shantaye McMorrow, KAVES, Piero Penizzotto and PJ Cambe
Opening Reception May 20th 3 - 6pm!
Court Tree Collective proudly presents “All the Smoke”, a group exhibition featuring four loacl artists that blur the lines between pop culture and abstraction. PJ Cambe decollages are made from actual wheat pasted advertisements that flood the streets and subway stations of New York City. Michael “KAVES” McLeer, the world-renowned graffiti artist works within the medium of found objects. Transforming discarded billboard sized portraits to create new identities. Shantaye McMorrow’s dark, gritty paintings act as pavement to work out her own traumatic life events. Piero Penizotto uses traditional methods of paper mache to carefully document culture and the world around him. His work aims to build a visual language that everyday people and people from the art world can both understand. Together, these works serve as a brave avenue of self-discovery.Click Here to shop/view the collection!︎
Shantaye McMorrow
Shantaye McMorrow is an abstract mixed-media painter focusing in acrylic, ink, spray paint and various dry mediums. Shantaye grew up on the south shore of Long Island, New York but eventually ventured to the west coast to pursue a BFA in Art & Visual Culture Education at the University of Arizona, as well as, a Graduate degree in Applied Behavior Analysis at ASU. During her time in Arizona, Shantaye immersed herself in teaching Fine Arts in public schools, galleries and privately, while also, honing in on her own artistic practice. Currently, Shantaye lives in Queens, New York and works as a behavior intervention specialist for the developmentally disabled community.
Shantaye’s artwork is autobiographical and created to make sense of traumatic life events, as well as, less than desirable feelings. Raw, gestural marks work primarily with color and value to emphasize internal landscapes. Paintings focus on her own negotiation of memory; particularly looking at how these experiences have shaped her current understanding of intimacy. The work can best be described as cynical non-linear representations; seen over time, all at once. Emotions or behaviors that are pertinent at the time of the work rise to the surface and are explored through intuitive mark-making. The artistic process is an active inventory of personal archetypes, allowing for connections to be drawn, with the goal of uncovering origins. The journey from start to finish, acts as a catharsis, allowing for connection to primal knowing and higher self.
KAVES
Michael ‘KAVES’ McLeer is a man of faith.
For McLeer (b. Brooklyn, 1969), faith and spirituality are derived not from a theistic higher power but from a rich fabric of personal memories firmly anchored to a sense of place. That place has always been but one:Brooklyn. McLeer’s work has continually been inspired by the crumbling, many-faced Brooklyn of the 1970s and 1980s in which he was born and raised.
McLeer has carried memories of this place in time and spent years recounting them as a kind of folklore through the formats of graffiti, music, and painting. He began making artwork in his early teens illegally spray painting subway trains, buses, and handball courts. This instilled in him a tendency of capitalizing onbold lines, high contrast, and fast mark-making. Graffiti also functioned as a form of storytelling and socialcommentary. It was a citywide bulletin board, a system of communication, and a platform for the youth forthe development of individual fable.
PJ Cambe
Brookyn based artist PJ Cambe’s work is inspired by the city he calls homes. His decollages are made from actual wheat pasted advertisements that flood the streets and subway stations of New York City. His background as a street artist and skateboarder led him into being a fine artist. Like many of his contemporaries he is self taught, an autodidact. Influenced by the DIY aesthetic, driven by finding one’s voice and style through the constant exploration of trial and error. PJ is also an accomplished street photographer, designer, DJ and skateboarder. He owns and operates the skateboard hardware company “Happy 88”. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter. His work has been exhibited in galleries both domestically and abroad.
Piero Penizzotto
Piero Penizzotto (b. 1998) is a Peruvian-American artist born and based in Queens, NY. Piero’s practice, primarily sculpture and painting, is rooted in documenting the people, objects, locations, and the personal/communal experiences in his life that hold a sentimental value to him. He received a BFA from Hunter College (2022) and has recently placed third in Labor Art’s annual CUNY Contest (2021) with his painting “At a Glance”.
Future Primitive
March 25 - April 29th, 2023OPENING RECEPTION March 25th 3 - 6pm!!!
Court Tree Collective presents “Future Primitive”, a set of works that represent original approaches to artistic styles drawn from the ancestral past. Jeanne Tremel’s improvised sculptures—made from objects gleaned while beachcombing—fill a void of a modern day archeologist. Creating handmade instruments like fixtures from the past. The spiritual paintings of Michael McGrath render uncanny subjects—ghosts, floating faces, arched cats, monsters — in a playfully crude style, like the illustrations to some haunted, obscure folklore. Pushing this style further, Saxon Quinn’s compositions pose sketchy shapes on opaque backgrounds, in a messy arrangement that seems to encompass cosmic bodies and pop culture alike, following a tradition somewhere between cave painting and de Kooning. The scratched faces of Yool Kim’s paintings crowd her canvas like the chatty spirits of ancestors, outlined with manic precision in vivid colors. Together, these works suggest the persistence of the distant past within the work of contemporary artists.
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Michael McGrath
Michael McGrath lives and works in Rhinebeck, in New York's Hudson Valley. His recent work is inspired by his current upstate NY environment and its history, and also in his curiosity in the cults of mysticism, mythology and religion through the lens of naivety. He is interested in religion, magic and mythology, and also more mundane aspects of daily life. His ghosts and skulls symbolize death and afterlife, with a measure of happiness and hope. His faces are often gods, deities or the deceased, and he imagines that “…if there were gods, ghosts or magic, they would exist in nature and in the landscape; not just beings in the sky, but also in the ground, in the trees, in the flowers and in the animals.”
Michael’s work has bee exhibited in Rhinebeck, New York, Germany, Belgium, and a solo show at Fir Gallery in Beijing, China.
SAXON JJ QUINN
Saxon JJ Quinn is a self-taught mixed media artist interested in the rough, the worn and the resilient. Born in country Victoria, Saxon spent his childhood surrounded by creativity. His artist mother tied a basket to the ceiling of her studio where, as a baby, he would swing while she worked. As he grew older, he began sketching, painting and experimenting with clay, at times accidentally defacing her works in the process.
After studying Communication Design and building his career in Melbourne, Saxon moved to New York City, immersing himself in the city and its urban patina.The beauty he found in the aged and weathered elements were cemented as the foundation of his creative work, and painting became the outlet.
Now, from his home in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Saxon primarily uses canvas, graphite and paint, layering hues, symbols and textures to create works that sway from the intentional to the unrestrained, the minimalist to the uninhibited. Each piece bears meaningful motifs alongside elements of mischievous humour, with each mark representing an aspect of his life. These marks are arranged precisely to induce a sensory effect, where a calming constellation can be found in a world of perceived chaos.
Yool Kim
Seoul-based artist Yool Kim navigates ideas of identity and subconscious mind through mixed media artwork. Her paintings focus on figures expressing a form of disorder. This is seen not through just facial expressions, but extends throughout the painting to express dissatisfaction and dizziness that come from the human experience. Kim’s work often highlights self expression that have not yet matured, an expression stunted in growth. Her desire is to organize these emotions through her artwork.
Kim was born in 1982 and graduated from Hongik University Graduate School of Industry in 2015 with a degree in Color Studies.
Jeanne Tremel
Jeanne Tremel (b. 1960) is a visual artist who has shown her works throughout the NYC area, the US and abroad. Born in Minneapolis, her formal art education began at St.Cloud State University, Minnesota (BFA) and continued in Chicago at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA). Later, at the School of Visual Arts in NYC, she earned a
Certificate in Art Therapy. She has exhibited her work most recently with Court Tree Collective, Flatfile Gallery, Nancy Margolis Gallery, Pelham Art Center, David & Schweitzer Contemporary, Royal Society of American Art and Ground Floor Gallery.Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Time Out New York, and featured on many online venues, such as Artspiel, WoArtBlog, Woman Artist A Day, Left Bank Art Blog, Artefuse,Two Coats of Paint, and Gallery Travels. In November, 2015, she was interviewed about her work for The Huffington Post. She works in a wide range of media both 2D and 3D,alternating between oil and mixed media flat work and sculptural wall and floor pieces, installations, all made of found and collected materials and hand-made textile forms.She
also enjoys the challenge of painting en plein-air, especially seascapes. Jeanne has lived in Brooklyn for 29 years.
Jason Lustig “Creature Comforts”
January 21 – February 25, 2023Court Tree Collective proudly presents “Creature Comforts” by Brooklyn based artist Jason Lustig. A collection of works made between 2019 - 2022.
A full studio replica installed last week for Jason Lustig’s first solo exhibition “Creature Comforts” opening January 21st.
Jason’s work hits on many different levels and collectively there is a narrative taking place. Whether putting himself into the work as a cat or a lonely landscape of a new home, there is a visual common ground that brings them all together. The imagery demonstrates humility yet defines his modest style as one can see in the intelligence of his lines and color palettes. His work is reminiscent of the art style that was forged by "The Beautiful Losers” a style that influenced and still influences many of his generation. It’s the crossroads of street culture, nature, and folklore. His work is a refreshing comfort that we appreciate and value.
View the collection and available works here!︎
Jason Lustig is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Originally from the S.F. Bay Area Jason’s work is largely informed by the environment he grew up in. Often moving between cities, mountains, and coastal areas, Jason uses these as the main settings of his paintings and then adds charmingly mischievous characters to live inside them. Using a bright and saturated color palette, his paintings capture moments in time from other worlds that seem to parallel our own.
Jacob Gerard “Dream Machine”
Dec 3rd – January 14th, 2023
Jacob Gerard is a true outsider artist with no formal training. His work is powerful, brilliant in creativity, and rich in humor. His colors, brightness, attention to details, emphasize a scale of production usually found in a well seasoned educated artist. In less than 2 years of painting exclusively he has amassed a small arsenal of paintings that would be considered a full career for many. Whether this is an attempt to never go back to construction or years of pent up creativity the current results will last a lifetime. At this moment in time all signs point to this being the beginning of a flourishing artistic career.
View the collection and available works here!︎
“The greatest American Art Form”
Oct 1 - Nov 12th, 2022“Court Tree Collective is giving Brooklyn a much-needed vernacular study of skateboarding in New York City. Photographs of contemporary skaters complement their self-designed decks in a nearby installation, revealing how skaters perceive the board as an extension of the body. A collaboration between photographer Clarence K. and pro skater Louis Sarowsky, the three-part exhibition unpacks skating as a realm devoid of judgment and opposed to police violence from the start.”
- Hyperallergic
Court Tree Collective proudly presents “the greatest American art form.” A dedication to skateboarding and its contribution to global culture. This three part exhibition includes the professional skateboarder/artist (Louis Sarowsky), the photographer (Clarence K.) documenting the modern skateboarder, and skateboarders and admirers (group exhibition) presenting their versions of the skateboard deck.
Clarence K.
Since day one, the skateboarding culture has viewed life differently than everyone else. It's always been blind to race, gender and age. It's produced the most forward thinking people on the planet. Even now as it has grown into astronomical proportions it still keeps the same core values. It's the most modern tribe on the planet and If you skate you understand what this means. Photographer Clarence K. has captured today's New York City skateboarder in the most honest and realist way.
His Skate-Homies series has become synonymous in the New York City skate scene. In just 5 years Clarence has photographed over a thousand skateboarders. Most recently he took his white seamless and camera around the country. Just like in New York he sets up in the skateparks. As many great documentarians he is entrenched in the culture. His portraits have garnered rave reviews from some of the biggest names in the game. Tony Hawk, Michael Burnett, Lance Mountain, Steve Olson have all expressed their love for his compelling imagery.
“These are raw, honest portraits of skaters in their element; they are gritty and beautiful all at once. I am honored to be included.”- Tony Hawk
“These photos are not only intimate and immediate (and really beautiful,) they are a terrific snapshot of what a New York skateboarder really looks like in 2019. A special time captured in a seemingly simple way, let’s see these skaters again in 2029.”
- Michael Burnett, Editor of Thrasher
Click here to ︎ see works available from Clarence.
Click here ︎to purcahse the Vol. 3 Skate-Homies book.
Louis Sarowsky
Louis Sarowsky is part of a new generation of "self-taught" artists. Not necessarily an Outsider. As it's almost impossible to go on without any knowledge of how things work directly at our fingertips. With YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok, these new types of self taught artists are fearless and ambitious. Creating granite sculptures is no easy task for even the most seasoned sculptor. With only a few years under his belt in doing so, he is creating images that speak to his language and culture. As seen here in the "Stone VX1000", the most influential camera in skateboarding cinema or his . Known in the skateboarding community as Lurker Lou. His skateboarding and personality has always been his own. We are excited to be exhibiting perhaps his next chapter in super creative life.
DECKED OUT
Court Tree Collective proudly presents “Decked Out” an open call to skateboarders/artists. As skaters demonstrate a unique individualistic identity through they're riding and lifestyle, we are asking those who are interested to create artwork ( via any media ) on a skateboard deck for possible inclusion in our forthcoming show “Decked Out”.
Click here ︎ to see entire deck collection!
