At Felix Art Fair, Booth 1237, 12th Floor, Philip Martin Gallery is pleased to present new and never-before-seen works by Brian Bress, Katy Cowan, Tomory Dodge, Daniel Dove, Aaron Morse, Laurie Nye, Sophie Treppendahl and Sung Jik Yang. In their respective bodies of work, these eight artists of different generations and backgrounds consider interiority, personal vision and the nature of the art object today.
Brian BRESS's single- and multi-channel videos address the connections between film, photography, painting and the two-dimensional picture plane these mediums share. Presented as wall-mounted HD monitor works, Bress’s videos unfold as a soundless, digital loop in which isolated actors (often the artist himself) perform in various forms of dress. The faces, torsos, and arms of these characters are obscured by painted masks and suits. They face frontal and use the HD monitor’s screen as a picture plane through which they cut with reciprocating saws to reveal their own presence.
Katy COWAN’s hand-painted metal wall reliefs, drawings and paintings move easily between mediums, connecting to the physicality inherent in painting, drawing and sculpture. “I am completely interested in breaking down barriers of categorization,” Cowan states. Her transitions rely on a larger way of thinking that emphasizes alteration, repetition, and a conceptual emphasis on material choice. Katy Cowan embraces an open attitude towards studio practice:
Daniel DOVE’s works consider modern American life through the lens of Realism, a painterly approach popularized by Gustav Courbet that focuses on depicting, “ordinary life and people with accuracy.” Dove’s paintings bring together the surreal paradoxes of our current age. His work engages the materiality of oil painting, an intensive traditionally physical medium of pigments, solvents, canvas and brushes; governed by touch and gesture; animated by and finding meaning in the ways in which we experience pictures today.
Tomory DODGE's paintings have a deep sense of pictorial space. Dodge begins his works with patterns of stripes and shapes. Over this initial visual structure, he lays in a network of expressive brushwork, dots and lines. The result is a pictorially engaged surface of striking color combinations and active mark-making.
Aaron MORSE’s work engages with human and environmental concerns, often with a view toward our greater narratives about ourselves and the world in which we live. Morse's paintings and works-on-paper invite us to consider myth, nature and culture through dynamic compositions that combine their elements in colorful and complex layers.
In Laurie NYE's work, painting is itself a motif, one that offers utopia, expression and freedom, particularly when depicting nature. For Nye, nature is a place of self-discovery, connection and celebration. Her vivid brushwork, succinct color, and sophisticated use of line breaks up the picture plane, emphasizing its materiality, flatness, and the construction of painterly space. Laurie Nye's paintings suggest possibility in our relationship with nature, highlighting and strengthening our fundamental bond with, not only our immediate surroundings, but also our world as a living gaia.
Sophie TREPPENDAHL’s paintings explore, “color, homes, and the art of taking care of yourself,” Treppendahl writes. Taking care of oneself, in Treppendahl's practice, means listening to one’s own internal voices, and responding to these voices by way of pictorial representation and the movement of paint on the canvas. Sophie Treppendahl’s work builds a world; in this sense, it reminds us of the pictorial strategies of early 20th-Century French Modernist masters like Henri Matisse and Édouard Vuillard, and late 20th-Century American ones like David Hockney and Lois Dodd.
Sung Jik YANG crafts rich portraits that transport viewers into a world of unique individuals, revealing their visages and inner emotions in thoughtful, careful compositions. Sung Jik Yang structures his paintings as direct encounters between viewer and subject. Yang comments, “I capture the appearance of people that I paint. I love their spontaneous image and I try my best to present my interpretation of the human subject."
Brian BRESS (b. 1975, Norfolk, VA) received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI) in 1998 and his MFA from the University of California (Los Angeles, CA) in 2006. Brian Bress’ recent exhibitions include “Pocket Universe,” Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); “Message from Our Planet,” The Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation (Dallas, TX); “In Production,” Yuz Museum (Shanghai, China) organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; “Brian Bress: Pictures Become You,” Akron Art Museum (Akron, OH); “Paradox: The Body in the Age of AI,” Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA); “Idiom (Brian, Raffi, Britt),” Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA); )“Interventions: Brian Bress,” Santa Barbara Museum of Art (Santa Barbara, CA); “In the Box: Brian Bress,” Chrysler Museum of Art (Norfolk, VA); “The Imperfect Tense (for Josef Albers),” Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, MD); “Screens: Virtual Material,” DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (Boston, MA); “Commercial Break,” Public Art Fund (New York, NY); “Brian Bress: Status Report,” New Museum (New York, NY); Museo d’arte contemporanea Roma (Rome, Italy); and “2016 Moving Image Biennial,” Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève (Geneva, Switzerland). His 2015-16 touring exhibition, “Brian Bress: Make Your Own Friends,” opened at Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Salt Lake City, UT) and traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (Denver, CO) and Orange County Museum of Art (Newport Beach, CA). His work is in the collections of Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation (Los Angeles, CA); Hammer Museum (Los Angeles, CA); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA); Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento, CA); Palm Springs Museum of Art (Palm Springs, CA); Santa Barbara Museum of Art (Santa Barbara, CA); San Diego Museum of Art (San Diego, CA); Museum of Contemporary Art (San Diego, CA); Portland Museum of Art (Portland, OR); Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Salt Lake City, UT); Carl and Marilynn Thoma Foundation (Dallas, TX); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, TX); Oklahoma State University Museum (Stillwater, OK); Akron Art Museum (Akron, OH); OZ Art Northwest Arkansas, (Bentonville, AR); Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago (Chicago, IL); Loyola University Museum of Art (Chicago, IL); Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, IL); Hanes Gallery, Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, NC); Norton Museum of Art (West Palm Beach, FL); and Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY). Bress lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Katy COWAN (b. 1982, Lake Geneva, WI) received her BFA from University of Puget Sound (Puget Sound, WA) in 2004; and her MFA from Otis College of Art and Design (Los Angeles, CA) in 2014. Katy Cowan’s recent exhibitions include “Time’s Arrow,” “Built From Line,” “Painted Drawings,” and “FIGURETHROUGHCONTOUR, DRIFT,” at Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); Green Gallery (Milwaukee, WI); “All Bangers, All the Time,” and “gods on a bridge,” Miles McEnery Gallery (New York, NY); Haverkampf Leistenschneider (Berlin, Germany); and Meyer Riegger (Berlin Germany). Additional museum and gallery exhibitions include “Lines of Thought: Gestural Abstraction,” Berkeley Museum of Art and Pacific Film Archive (Berkeley, CA); “Selections from the Permanent Collection,” Milwaukee Art Museum (Milwaukee, WI); “From the Collection of Anonymous,” North Dakota Museum of Art (Grand Fork, ND); and “as the sun chases the unfurling fray,” Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA). Cowan’s work has been the subject of solo and group institutional exhibitions at Otis College of Art and Design (Los Angeles,CA); University of Puget Sound (Tacoma, WA); Lynden Sculpture Garden (Milwaukee, WI); Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (Madison, WI); Synchrotron Radiation Center (Stoughton, WI); Poor Farm (Manawa, WI). She has had solo gallery exhibitions at The Green Gallery (Milwaukee, WI); Document (Chicago, IL); Kate Werble Gallery (New York, NY); Fourteen30 Contemporary (Portland, OR). Cowan’s work is in public and private collections such as Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara,CA); (Milwaukee Museum of Art (Milwaukee, WI); Minneapolis Museum of Art (Minneapolis, MN); North Dakota Museum of Art (Grand Fork, ND); Lynden Sculpture Garden (Milwaukee, WI); Art in Embassies (Maputo, Mozambique); and Northwestern Mutual Insurance (Milwaukee, WI). Her work has been reviewed in Artforum, Los Angeles Times, Architectural Digest, Wallpaper*, Contemporary Art Review LA, Artnet and other publications. Cowan lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
Daniel DOVE (b. 1971, Austin Texas) received his BFA from University of Texas (Austin, TX) and his MFA from Yale University (New Haven, CT). Daniel Dove’s recent and upcoming solo and group exhibitions include “reAnimal,” and “Pocket Universe,” Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); David Zwirner Platform (Los Angeles, CA); Frederick R. Weisman Museum (Malibu, CA); Cleveland Institute of Art (Cleveland, OH); The Contemporary Austin (Austin, TX); and Jack Shainman Gallery (New York, NY). Dove is the recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship. His work has been the focus of reviews and features in publications such as Artforum: Must See, Art in America, Los Angeles Times, The Village Voice, Harper’s Magazine, LA Weekly, and Tema Celeste. Dove’s work is in the permanent collections of the Frederick R. Weisman Museum (Malibu, CA); Progressive Insurance (Cleveland, OH); and Hallmark Art Collection (Kansas City, MO). Daniel Dove lives and works in San Pedro, CA.
Tomory DODGE (b. 1974, Denver, CO) received his BFA from Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI) and his MFA from California Institute of the Arts (Valencia, CA) in 2004. Tomory Dodge’s recent and upcoming solo and group exhibitions include “Newfoundland and Back,” “Hair into Gold and Back Again,” and “Pocket Universe,” Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); Miles McEnery Gallery (New York, NY); LUX Art Institute (Encinitas, CA); "Stranger Than Paradise,” Rhode Island School of Design Museum (Providence, RI); "Grafforists," Torrance Art Museum (Torrance, CA); "Nowism," Pizzuti Collection (Columbus, OH); "An Appetite For Painting," National Museum (Oslo, Norway); "Pouring It On," Herter Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts (Amherst, MA); “Directions to a Dirty Place,” Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (Winston-Salem, NC); "Future Tense: Reshaping the Landscape,” Neuberger Museum of Art (Purchase, NY); "American Soil," Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS); and Sheldon Memorial Gallery, University of Nebraska (Lincoln, NE). Dodge’s work is in the collections of such museums as Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA); Orange County Museum of Art (Newport Beach, CA); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, (San Francisco, CA); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (Berkeley, CA); Henry Art Gallery (Seattle, WA); Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, TX); Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS); Weisman Art Museum (Minneapolis, MN); Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, MN); Orlando Museum of Art (Orlando, FL); Knoxville Museum of Art (Knoxville, TN); Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (Birmingham, AL); Weatherspoon Art Museum (Greensboro, NC); Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, DC); RISD Museum, Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI); Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, CT); and Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY). Dodge's work is the subject of several monographic catalogs and has been discussed in such publications as Artforum, Flash Art, Modern Painters, Art Review, Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. Dodge lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Aaron MORSE (b. 1974, Tucson, AZ) received his BFA from the University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ) and his MFA from University of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, OH). Aaron Morse’s recent and upcoming solo and group exhibitions include, “Sea and Land” Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); "If the Sky Were Orange: Art in the Time of Climate Change,” Blanton Museum of Art (Austin, TX); Hammer Museum (Los Angeles, CA); Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive (Berkeley, CA); Santa Barbara Museum of Art (Santa Barbara, CA); Contemporary Arts Museum (Houston, TX); Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS); Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (Logan, UT); Weatherspoon Art Museum (Greensboro, NC); Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery At Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, NY). Aaron Morse is included in the Museum Collections of Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive (Berkeley, CA); Santa Barbara Museum of Art (Santa Barbara, CA); Henry Art Gallery (Seattle, WA); Hammer Museum (Los Angeles, CA); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA); Hilbert Museum of California Art (Orange, CA); Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (Logan, UT); Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS); Blanton Museum of Art (Austin, TX); Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, NY); Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY); Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY); Rhode Island School of Design, (Providence, RI). Morse's work has been reviewed in such publications as Los Angeles Times, Time Out, Flaunt, Tema Celeste, and Artweek. Aaron Morse lives and works in Los Angeles.
Laurie NYE (b. 1972, Memphis, TN) received her BFA from the Memphis College of Art (Memphis, TN), and her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts (Valencia, CA). Laurie Nye’s work was featured in the solo exhibtion, “This World Only” at Philip Martin Gallery (2025, Los Angeles, CA). Laurie Nye’s work has appeared in such solo and group exhibtions as “In Berlin,” (Haverkampf Leistenschneider, Berlin, Germany); “A Particular Kind of Heaven,” Parrasch Heijnen (Los Angeles, CA); “The Moth & The Thunderclap,” Modern Art (London, UK); “Encounter,” Rachel Uffner Gallery (New York, NY); “BodyLand,” Galerie Max Hetzler (Berlin, Germany); “Unnatural Nature: Post-Pop Landscapes,” Acquavella (New York, NY); Van Doren Waxter (New York, NY); Bark Berlin Gallery (Berlin, Germany); The Pit (Glendale, CA); Odd Ark (Los Angeles, CA); Big Pictures LA (Los Angeles, CA); Blake and Vargas, (Berlin, Germany); The Dot Project, (London, UK); Day and Night Gallery (Atlanta, GA); La Loma Projects, (Pasadena, CA); and Unpaved Gallery (Yucca Valley, CA). Laurie Nye’s artist project, “Chickasaw Moon,” at Odd Ark (Los Angeles, CA) was an Artforum Critic’s Pick. Laurie Nye’s solo exhibition at Philip Martin Gallery was Artforum Best of Year 2021 feature. Nye has work in the OZ Art Northwest Arkansas, (Bentonville, AR) collection. Her work has been reviewed in such publications as Artillery, Los Angeles Times, Artforum, FAD Magazine and LA Weekly. Laurie Nye lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Sophie TREPPENDAHL (b. 1991, Baton Rouge, LA) received her BFA from College of Charleston (Charleston, SC) in 2013. Treppendahl’s work was featured in The New York Times front-page Arts Section story, “What Our Critics Are Looking Forward to in 2024.” Sophie’s recent and upcoming solo and group exhibitions include “The Nearness of You,” “Take Care of Yourself,” and “The Sky Has a Thousand Windows,” Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); Haverkampf Leistenschneider (Berlin, Germany); Jack Hanley Gallery (New York, NY); Hashimoto Contemporary (New York, NY); Johansson Projects (Oakland, CA); Quirk Gallery (Richmond, VA); Kenise Barnes Fine Art (Larchmont, NY); 1969 Gallery (New York, NY); Carrie Secrist Gallery (Chicago, IL); Heaven Gallery (Chicago, IL); Indianapolis Art Center (Indianapolis, IN); Ada Gallery (Richmond, VA); Dread Lounge (Los Angeles, CA); The Broad (Richmond, CA); How’s Howard (Boston, MA); The Southern Gallery (Charleston, SC); Gildar Gallery (Denver, CO); and Richard and Dolly Mass Gallery (Purchase, NY). Treppendahl has been awarded residencies with the Golden Foundation (New Berlin, NY); 100 W Corsicana (Corsicana, TX); The Provincial (Chief, MI); and The Wassaic Project (Wassais, NY). Her work has been reviewed in publications such as Booooooom, White Hot Magazine of Contemporary Art, Hyperallergic, and Chicago Reader. Treppendahl lives and works in New Orleans, LA.
Sung Jik YANG (b. 1989, South Korea) received his BFA from the ArtCenter College of Design (Pasadena, CA). Sung Jik Yang’s recent and upcoming exhibitions include “Bloom and Fade,” “Paseo,” and “Pocket Universe,” Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); “Boys,” X Museum (Beijing, China); “Friends & Lovers,” Flag Foundation (New York, NY); Friends Indeed Gallery (San Francisco, CA); Samuele Visentin (London, UK); 8-Bridges Gallery with Friends Indeed Gallery (San Francisco, CA); Eastern Projects (Los Angeles, CA); Space Gallery at Ayzenberg (Pasadena, CA). Yang’s work has been reviewed in such publications as Fuerteventura Times, Booooooom, and New American Paintings. Yang lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Felix Art Fair will take February 25 – March 1 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles. Hours are Wednesday through Saturday, from 11am - 7pm, and Sunday, 11am - 5pm. For more information, visit https://felixfair.com/.
Philip Martin Gallery is Booth 1237, 12th Floor at Felix Art Fair.
