Will Hutnick, Andrea Wohl Keefe, Ben Pranger, and Stephanie Williams

Spin, Dazzle, Fade, July 2015

This July, Grizzly Grizzly is awash in color with ‘Spin, Dazzle, Fade,’ a group exhibition featuring papier-maché sculpture, stop motion animation, and painterly installation. The diverse, playful grouping includes works by Will Hutnick, Andrea Wohl Keefe, Ben Pranger, and Stephanie Williams.  Although working in radically different media, each of the artists in ‘Spin, Dazzle, Fade’creates works of hybridity that are at once formal, sensory and emotional.

-- In her painting and works-on-paper, Andrea Wohl Keefe (Philadelphia) plays with color and shape to explore the potential of both discovery and intentionality.  “My work bounces between geometric and organic structures and spiritual and psychological ideas.” 
-- Currently based in New Jersey, Ben Pranger will be exhibiting mixed-media sculpture that also merges organic forms – in his case with architecture.  He refers to his work as ‘a kind of failed architecture, where structures, overwhelmed by disaster, collapse under the weight of matter, only to rise again from the ruins to rebuild the city anew.’
-- In the stop animation video ‘Compression’ by Stephanie Williams (Alexandria, VA) sculpture is no longer inanimate; through a series of simple and complex motions the objects become embodied and laden with meaning.  “These characters employ a collection of glimpses compiled of simple motions: a twitch, vibration, a nervous tapping or flutter instead of using a linear narrative.”
-- Brooklyn-based, Will Hutnick‘s process-oriented installations are vivid glimpses into what he describes as ‘undefined space that exists between our familiarity: a maze of self-similar patterns, systems of recursion, objects in transition.”  

Artist Bios

Will Hutnick received his M.F.A. from Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY) and his B.A. from Providence College (Providence, RI). Recent exhibitions include You’re A Ghost at The Java Project (Brooklyn, solo), Deep End at The Wassaic Project and Maxon Mills (Wassaic, NY), Private Eyes | Grey Sunsets at Circuit 12 Contemporary (Dallas, TX), New Work City at Momenta Art (Brooklyn), The Flat Files: Year Two at TSA (Brooklyn), and Will Hutnick: He Chutes He Scores at The Center for Contemporary Art (Bedminster, NJ, solo). His work has been featured in New American Paintings, Beautiful/Decay and Whitehot Magazine’s “Best Artists List for 2013”. Hutnick has been an Artist in Residence at Yaddo (Saratoga Springs, NY), The Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), 4heads on Governors Island (Governors Island, NY), Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT), and is currently the Curator in Residence at Trestle Projects (Brooklyn). He lives and works in Brooklyn.

Andrea Wohl Keefe received an MFA from Miami University and BFA from University of Michigan. Recent exhibitions include Allens Lane Art Center, Philadelphia, PA, Winter Gallery at Millersville University and RHV Fine Art, Brooklyn, NY. In addition to making art, Keefe curates art exhibitions as co-director of Mount Airy Contemporary. Keefe is also the Art Department Chair at Central High School.

Ben Pranger has shown his work throughout the U.S.  Recent exhibitions include “Home Improvement” at Rock St. (BOS Festival, NY), “Memento Mori “ at Field Projects (NY), “Obsolescence” at Curious Matter (NJ) and “Dialogic” at the Rowan Univ. Art Gallery (NJ). He has participated in artist residencies at Kohler Art/Industry, Fine Arts Work Center of Provincetown, the Marie Walsh Sharpe Program, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and has received sculpture grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the New Jersey Council for Art. He has taught at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, Hollins University in Virginia, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

Stephanie Williams received her MFA in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design. She has shown both nationally and internationally including Irvine Contemporary, Washington Project for the Arts, Geborgen Kamers, the Arlington Arts Center, Transformer Gallery, and Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Center with reviews in the Huffington Post and the Washington Post. She has received fellowships from both the Vermont Studio Center and Toby Devan Lewis Foundation. Recent projects include the Wassaic Project’s summer exhibition Deep End, Gwarlingo Press’s Brothers Grimm book project and exhibition Mirror Mirrored, as well as curating forPebble Drinkers at Gallery Aferro. Williams will also be a resident artist at ACRE in Steuben, WI this summer. Williams currently resides and teaches art in Virginia.