NYC-based curator/writer.

Chris Ballantyne’s work focuses on vernacular architecture and observation of the American landscape.  Banal features of suburban and industrial zones are sources for paintings that highlight the quirky and absurd.  Ballantyne states that, “Growing up in a military family and moving to different parts of the country, there was a certain familiarity to the kinds of houses and neighborhoods. They were a series of suburban developments built in separate regions of the country, always on the outskirts of larger cities, at the exit ramps of interstate highways, and all very similar in age and design.  My own notions of space developed out of this cultural landscape which was striving for an indidvidual sense of personal space,  consciously economic, and somewhere between urban and rural.” Dysfunctional structures are flawless in their strangeness, made beautiful through symmetry, simplified lines and flat, subdued colors. Ballantyne eliminates detail to emphasize the subtleties of the way we experience space and our attempts at containment. He extends these concepts further by expanding the imagery of his paintings beyond the picture plane and onto the surrounding walls. “Most of my works involve combinations of various places, drawn from memory. As well, my own interests in skateboarding and surfing altered how I saw  the use of these structures ranging from empty pools, sidewalk curbs, to ocean jetties in a way that tied in to my sense of this larger push and pull between culture and nature.” With shrewd restraint, Ballantyne accentuates the antisocial effects of our built environment with a hint of humor and plenty of ambiguity. A curious emptiness permeates the work of Chris Ballantyne. Graphically rendered buildings, pools, parking lots, and fences take on new meanings and amplified significance, isolated on flat fields of color.

Joan Wong is a designer that creates visual responses to narratives. She has designed book covers for Penguin, Random House, Alfred A. Knopf, Farrar Straus and Giroux, New Directions, Simon and Schuster, and Harper Collins. She is also a frequent collaborator with the New York Times, creating spot illustrations for their articles. In 2018, she curated and illustrated a collection of online stories about “lives that could have been” called “Sister Life.”

Aaron Graubart is an award winning still life and food photographer based in New York City. Born and raised in London, Aaron studied painting at the Sir John Cass School of Art and later photography at the London College of Communication. He has been creating beautiful, graphic, powerful images for advertising and editorial clients for more than a decade. A passion for the history and language of painting often informs and influences his work, however a love for all things contemporary, graphic, powerful and photographic keeps his work firmly rooted in the present. Aaron lives in Brooklyn with his 14 guitars, two blue bicycles and his beloved 1972 Triumph Bonneville.

Graphic designer in Brooklyn, NY