Los Angeles-based artist Tomory Dodge creates paintings that contain formal abstraction and representation within the same ground of the work. Dodge renders landscape environments that are fragmented and intentionally distilled. Often the disarray in his work is a reference to disaster and chaos as a potential force for transcendence. Dodge is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts and Rhode Island School of Design. The artist has exhibited at the Knoxville Museum of Art and the CRG Gallery in New York and has a forthcoming exhibition this year with ACME in Los Angeles. Dodge was a grant recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA grant in 2004.

DailyServing’s Sasha Lee recently had the chance to sit down with Denise Gray of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Education department to discuss her role as an educator, both as an individual scholar in the field and also within the MOCA’s philosophy. Denise, along with others in her field, are extraordinary examples of a vibrant voice shaping how we understand contemporary art today. Whether organizing special events, or working with the fantastic MOCA apprentice program, Denise’s hard efforts are all conducted in the name of inspiring passion for art in others, and lending the public tools to appreciate art. Denise’s educational philosophy begins not with a lecture, but what the participants themselves know and have experienced. In light of the recent events surrounding MOCA–Denise’s interview reminds us the invaluable resource that the museum & educators such as Denise provide.

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Levi van Veluw is a young multidisciplinary artist living and working in the Netherlands. He has won a number of accolades and been featured in a slew of magazines within the last two years for his ostentatious refashionings of his face, entitled Landscapes. In each of his series, he painstakingly obscures his likeness, in increasingly elaborate disguises. Earlier works include ridiculous wiring closed of ears and popsicle sticks applied to now Quasimodo like eyes to simply and humorously change the face.

Upon first viewing Levi van Veluw’s works, I couldn’t help but compare his disguised self-portraiture to the resurgence in the interest in the mask and film-inspired disguise in contemporary photography, ranging from Gillian Wearing‘s diaristic and macabre facial effigies of sorts, to Hanna Liden‘s gothic black metal inclinations, or even Cindy Sherman’s self-portraiture. Van Veluw’s works seem to function within this conversation; his experiments in obscuring and fundamentally altering his own visage seem like the logical, humorous, conclusion to prior explorations within examining, and shifting, self-image.

In a recent conversation with the artist, surprisingly, van Veluw dismisses the heavy conceptual framework of the mask, citing it as merely functioning for “religious” purposes or as “decoration/tradition.” In a way, his refusal to acknowledge his relationship to other similar artists is interesting; they become instead private, more ego-driven explorations of himself, like a young child painting his face for the first time and marveling at his own transformation. His works become comedic, self-absorbed endeavors, with the endless presenting and representing of his own face becoming the sole focus of his practice. In this sense, van Veluw’s practice is an apt metaphor for the creative process itself; laying bare an artist’s inherent vain and narcissistic impulses to both recreate and abstract their own identities.

Perhaps this is fundamentally what introduces humor into the works – we voyeuristically watch van Veluw make a fool of his face in new and surprising ways, time and time again.

P.P.O.W. Gallery will be showing New Works by Dutch artist Teun Hocks from January 8th-February 7th. Hocks is known for his use of constructed imagery and has exhibited worldwide for over twenty years. New Works includes photographs, drawings, and videos which often feature the artist as subject trapped in peculiar situations. Hocks explores human nature and communicates feelings of entrapment, perplexity, and wonder through his surreal settings.

Hocks’ process begins in the studio where he constructs scenes and takes a black and white photograph. He then hand colors the photographs with translucent oil paint, composing scenes portraying man’s alienation and frustration. His delicate use of props creates endless possibilities of narrative for viewers captivated by the curious nature of these works.

There are several publications of Hocks’ work, including the Teun Hocks monograph with an essay by Janet Koplos, published in 2006. Several museums and private collectors have acquired his work, and this will be his eighth solo exhibition with P.P.O.W. Gallery.

**Due to a fire on the floor above P.P.O.W Gallery, the exhibition now has a temporary home at 511 West 25th Street, Rm 301 New York, NY 10001**

Like the Spice Gallery in Brooklyn will be presenting Jenny Morgan‘s recent figurative oil paintings in the exhibition Abrasions, opening on January 9th. Morgan completed her M.F.A. in 2008 at the School of Visual Arts in New York and this will be her first solo show in New York, where she currently lives and works.

Abrasions presents several startling portraits of people close to the artist, painted on monochromatic grounds and often depicted nude. The artist first paints the subcutaneous flesh of the subjects, and then scrapes and sands away at the top layers of the paint, causing their skin to look abraded and scorched in areas. This physical layering of the paint mimics the layering of dermis and epidermis of human flesh. Her remarkable realism, skillful technique, and ability to portray psychological subtleties through facial expression are astonishing.

Morgan has exhibited nationwide and has participated in group shows at Columbia University, The LeRoy Neiman Gallery, and the Smithsonian Institute’s National Portrait Gallery. Her was recently featured at Scope Art Fair, Miami and Bridge Art Fair, Miami Beach.

In the Spring of last year, The Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA) partnered with conceptual artist Carl Pope to create a city-wide public art project titled “The Mind of Cleveland.” In the vain of previous projects which attempt to instigate positive social change, Pope conducted several public meetings with the residents of Cleveland and posed the question “What do you think about Cleveland?” to be answered in 10 words or less. Pope then selected several of the most potent phrases to be printed and publicly displayed on billboards and letter pressed posters throughout the city. The project offered a voice to the everyday person in Cleveland and opened a greater dialogue among the community.

Carl Pope has exhibited widely across the United States with works included in the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago, Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and the Whitney Museum in New York City. The artist is a graduate of Indiana University and has since received support from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

In his first solo exhibition in the U.S, Danish artist Peter Callesen presents Folded Thoughts featuring new paper-cutout sculptures and vitrines. The works, which are on view at Peter Rubenstein Gallery in New York, transform a simple two-dimensional white sheet of paper into a fantastical three-dimensional object. The objects on view reference fairy tales and children games, including images of castles, ruins, religious figures, skeletons, trees and cloud formations. In the past, Callesen has utilized snow, ice, ink and watercolor as his primary materials.

Callesen studied at Det Jyske Kunstakademi in Arhus, Denmark and is a graduate of Goldsmiths College in London. In 2009, the artist wall have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Religious Art in Lemvig, Denmark. The artist current loves and works in Copenhagen.