Brooklyn-based artist Ryan Wallace is currently exhibiting in “Cascading Debris,” a group exhibition, at the OK OK Gallery in Seattle. Wallace, who is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Art and Design (RISD), has gained much notoriety for his seemingly narrative paintings that are loaded with symbolism and references to contemporary culture and experience. The artist has said that his works act “autonomously and as a whole, suggesting each piece as a segment or selection lifted from a larger landscape or longer timeline,” allowing for a greater possible narrative to exist outside of the information provided within the painting. In 2004, Wallace exhibited “Carpe Cras,” which translates to “Seize Tomorrow,” a collaborative exhibition with fellow artist Andrew Shoultz, a previous DS feature, at the Black Market Gallery in Culver City, Calif. Wallace has exhibited works at the Sara Nightingale Gallery in Watermill, New York, and has participated in group exhibitions such as “We are near” at the Allston Skirt Gallery in Boston and “A Piece Apart” at the Aidan Savoy Gallery in New York City. Wallace has also appeared in numerous publications, including Artweek and Tokion magazines.

The paintings of French-born artist Jules de Balincourt are saturated with Americana references. The artist was raised on the West Coast and was immensely influenced by contemporary culture in America. In the “U.S. World Studies” series, de Balincourt uses the American map, dividing and re-attributing the state divisions to form a new layout of the United States. Other works reference graphics appropriated from 1940’s Hollywood movies, offering new political and patriotic meaning for the graphic icons of that era and today. De Balincourt has been considered an outside or faux-naive artist, though he strongly resists that notion as was said in The New York Times article titled “Artists on the Verge of a Breakthrough,” which listed 10 artists most likely to succeed from the second Greater New York exhibition at the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center. The artist received his BFA from the California College of Arts and his MFA from Hunter College in New York City, where he currently lives and works. This year, the artist will have a solo exhibition at the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in Paris, France. De Balincourt has also exhibited with Zach Feuer Gallery (LFL) in New York City and Allston Skirt Gallery in Boston.

Dutch artist Chris Berens is currently presenting new work in an exhibition titled “The Heaven Show” at the Jaski Gallery in Amsterdam. This marks the artist’s third show with the gallery since his 2005 career-launching exhibition. Berens uses a polar landscape filled with symbolic creatures that resemble the polar bear, penguin and lady bird that are all in existence to guide and protect the viewer during the transcendence into a heavenly realm. The artist uses a multitude of media and technique to achieve his imagery, including ink, acrylic, collaged paper, photograph fragments, fabric and wallpaper. Berens treats his paintings as records of personal emotion, saying, “It is rather the sum of feelings and images that merge into something greater.” The artist has exhibited in the annual Realisme in Amsterdam and ArtFair in Den Bosch for the past two years. Berens has also exhibited with STOK in Diemen and in Voorportaal in Oirschot, The Netherlands.

German artist Sebastian Gogel recently opened an exhibition titled “Welcome to the Sculpture Club” at Galerie Emmanuel Post in Leipzig, Germany. The artist has become renowned for his creative resourcefulness, successfully employing drawing, painting, sculpture and large scale installation to realize his ideas. Gogel’s work is saturated in dark humor and self-critique, and his anthropomorphous, sometimes grotesque works reflect a transfiguration of self. The artist often collaborates with Paule Hammer, a fellow student from the Leipzig Academy of Visual Art (see this previous DS feature), creating works under the name “Hagel.” Gogel constantly challenges the limitations and feasibility of art, which is reflected in the multitude of approaches used to execute his concepts. The artist currently lives and works in Leipzig, Germany, and has exhibited widely in the U.S. and Europe. Recent exhibitions include “FLUCH” with the Gallery Adler in New York and “Dance on the dancefloor” presented as “Hagel” at the Chung King Project in Los Angeles. Currently, the artist is exhibiting works in the Gemeente Museum in Den Haag, The Netherlands.

With a recent investigation into the dark side of life, contemporary art and culture magazine Beautiful/Decay has appropriately chosen artist Banks Violette for an article in its current issue. Violette uses such dark material as death metal, ritual murder and teenage suicide as points of departure for his slick and ghostly sculptures and installations. His aesthetics probe into American culture and are used as a commentary on the anxiety of youth. Violette blurs the boundaries between reality and pure fiction as he recreates the landscape of the teenage mind. The artist has selected contemporary music lyrics that have instigated violence and destruction amongst youth and attributed these lyrics to sculptures and installations that visually incite a similar or opposite emotive response. The artist has used salt to cast the music equipment from rock band Sunn O and has used disassembled forms such as a coffin as a relic of past performances and as an icon of aggressive subcultures. Violette received his BFA from the School of the Visual Arts (SVA) in New York (1998) and is an MFA graduate from Columbia University (2000), also in New York. The artist has exhibited extensively in New York City, including shows with Team Gallery and Whitney Museum of American Art. European exhibitions for the artist include works with the Galerie Rodolphe Janssen in Brussels and LISTE in Basel, Switzerland.

Wolfgang Bauer, an Austrian artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, recently sat for an interview with DailyServing. (See his previous DS feature.) Bauer was educated in Austria and in the U.S. at the Hochschule fuer Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna and Salzburg and the University of Southern California. This month, Bauer will be exhibiting “Spring Awakenings,” a new series of paintings with Found Gallery in Los Angeles.

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German artist Kati Heck uses a unique synthesis of photorealism, illustration and painterly expression to create seemingly collaged paintings. Heck’s work is often auto-biographical and explores her personal experiences as well as elements of contemporary culture through outside references of pornography, architecture, art history and instruction manuals. The possible narratives in her work are influenced by comics, mystery novels and film and often contain people from the artist’s immediate environment, such as family and friends. Heck’s paintings appear at first to be collaged, but they are actually meticulously painted to only appear constructed. The paintings offer new meanings from the associated images while hiding the actual methods of their creation. Heck currently lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. Last year, she exhibited at W139 in Amsterdam and Marc Selwyn Gallery in Los Angeles. Heck studied at the Akademie voor schone Kunsten in Antwerp and was a guest student at the Akademie der bildenden Kunste in Vienna, Austria, and the Akademie Munster in Germany. Currently, Heck is represented by John Connelly Presents in New York and Gallery Annie Gentils in Antwerp.