The paintings of New York-based artist Angela Fraleigh question the social issues of beauty, class and gender. Ambiguous figures occupy space bound in tension as they struggle for power within their surrounding environments. The artist’s formal process of painting allows the figures to be dominated by a wash of seductive intensity that captures the passion of her subjects. “If not, winter” is the title of a current exhibition that features four large-scale paintings and several figurative watercolors at the James Harris Gallery in Seattle. Fraleigh is a graduate of both the Yale University School of Art (MFA, 2003) and Boston University (BFA, 1998). The artist was nominated for the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award (2005) and received the Eliza Randall Prize at the Glassell School of Art (2004, 2005) in Houston, Texas.

The photography of Lynne Cohen documents large empty spaces that imply human presence through objects and environments rather than from physical being. Spaces such as classrooms, work places, spas, laboratories and libraries are often used in Cohen’s found sets, each room isolated and full of psychological and narrative possibilities. The photographs identify institutionalized spaces that are saturated with information about the humans who have occupied them. Recent exhibitions for the artist include “Mixed Messages” at Hasted Hunt Gallery in New York, and Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf in Frankfurt, Germany. Cohen has completed artist residences with Light Work at Syracuse University (1995), the Academie Sint Joost in Breda, Netherlands (1999, 2000), and the Hoger Instituut voor Schone in Kunst (HISK), Antwerp (2000, 2001). In 2002, the artist was featured in ArtForum for her exhibition with the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

Michael Salter is an artist who synthesizes the constant flow of images from contemporary culture into a new visual language. Salter creates multi-disciplinary work that challenges mass media through reductive and iconic imagery. The artist has begun to create installations of oversized and miniature robots out of cardboard boxes and Styrofoam. Salter re-contextualizes the materials, objects and images employed in his installations to offer new meanings and sensations for the viewer. Salter is currently a professor of digital arts at the University of Oregon and is a MFA graduate of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Salter has helped to develop the Lump Gallery/Projects in Raleigh, N.C., an art space that promotes innovative conceptual art from emerging artists. In 2004, the artist had his first major museum exhibition with Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) in Winston-Salem, N.C. Salter has exhibited with the Black Market Gallery in Los Angeles and has been featured in magazines such as Arkitip and Lodown.

Referencing promotional imagery used by commercial billboards to sell goods through sex and desire, Chinese artist Feng Zhengjie creates large-scale paintings as a critique on the principles of capitalism. The artist’s work reduces the overt content usually found in such advertisements, allowing a streamlined version of temptation to exist without a specific product. The essence of desire is manifested through the blank-eyed ethnically ambiguous women who graphically dominate each work. Zhengjie currently lives and works in Beijing, China, and is a graduate of the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in Sichuan Province, China. The artist has been included by the Saatchi Gallery in London and has exhibited in other notable exhibitions, including works at the National Museum of Art in Kaunas, Lithuania, and with Xin Dong CHENG’s Space for International Contemporary Art in Beijing, China.

Dusseldorf-based artist Katharina Grosse creates dominatingly formalist paintings on a range of surfaces, such as aluminum, paper, canvas and existing architectural structures. Grosse’s works are energetic and are not bound to a particular space but travel from walls to floors to ceilings, referencing elements of Abstract Expressionism and Colour Field painting. Often, piles of rumble on the gallery floor will be saturated with color, continuing the painting to a three-dimensional space. All of the artist’s paintings are site-specific and are rendered with sprayed paint. She will frequently block areas of the surface while painting to underscore negative space and further dictate form. Grosse’s recent exhibitions include installations at the De Appel in Amsterdam and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. The artist has also exhibited with White Cube in London and Palais de Tokyo in Paris. In 2000, Grosse was chosen for the distinguished Hamburger Bahnhof Museum Award for young artists.

The sculptures of artist Christian Maychack inhabit pre-existing architectural structures and animate otherwise stationary objects. The sculptures either take place as an extension of a pre-existing form or are manifested from the artist’s imagination. Maychack employs the visual vocabulary of three-dimensional rendering animation and uses anthropomorphic qualities to enliven each form. The work is simultaneously in a state of decomposition and growth, referencing a transformation of the object or structure’s function. Maychack is an MFA graduate from San Francisco State University, and, this May, the artist will present his second solo exhibition with the Gregory Lind Gallery in San Francisco. Last year, Maychack participated in the California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art in California and completed an artist in residence with the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, California. The artist has also received a full fellowship residency from the Vermont Studio Center and has participated in a residency with Sirius Art Center in Ireland.

“Zivildienst Kunstprojekt, Kunstprojekt Zivildienst” translates to “Social Service Art Project, Art Project Social Service” and is a new series by Canadian artist Althea Thauberger at John Connelly Presents in New York. Long periods of research in social and political developments led the artist into collaborative performances that intend to reveal a particular group consciousness and civil responsibility. Thauberger collaborates with various social groups, engaging them with exercises and meetings designed to help promote group discussion about their relevant social issues. The artist usually presents her work as video, performance or photography. Thauberger is currently a doctoral candidate in communications at the European Graduate School in Saas Fee, Switzerland, and is an MFA graduate of the University of Victoria in Victoria, B.C. The artist has recently exhibited with Basis Voor Acuele Kunst (B.A.K.) in the Netherlands and Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Germany.