Jeff Kraus

11 Newel Gallery is pleased to present two solo exhibitions of the works by Jeff Kraus and Natan Lawson. The concurrent exhibitions, Davis Lake and Bloom, present paintings and NFTs forming a conversation around the nature of painting, process and digital art.

Jeff Kraus and Natan Lawson disfigure familiar references by bringing attention to the generic or distinct qualities marks and motifs can possess. Whether the same old cracks in the neighborhood street, a textile motif seen hundreds of times in a hundred variations, or a mass-produced chair, mundaneness is only disrupted by deviations from the common format. The errant, misaligned, and deviant designs have character, and in this sense their breaks and abrasions take on the quality of signatures, evidence that something has happened and that someone, maybe, caused it. They take on the characteristics of individuals.

Both artists use a process-driven approach to create images that draw the viewer’s attention to formal errors within the picture plane. For Kraus, this involves putting his own video stills through a series of distortions, from digital manipulations that reveal breaks in the structure of the pixelated image, to rebuilding the image once again through a meticulous process of ink transfer on canvas. Kraus’s videos, places familiar to him, can be seen even through layers of distortion when viewed in conjunction with his paintings. Prior to his recent experiments with digital media, Kraus has worked across painting mediums, often employing spray paint to emphasize the power of gesture and mark as incidental to the process of creation.

Natan Lawson takes a different approach, using technology to “hand paint” patterns and collages with a painting machine. The resulting pictures have the effect of looking at once like textiles, pixels, and painterly marks, referencing cross-stitching and weaving techniques created on a grid. Their mechanical precision sometimes produces a trompe l’oeil effect: the photographic source image of an old design brought back to life in a new medium. Lying between hand-made and mechanically produced, Lawson’s paintings make very subtle the relationship between the artist’s hand and the painting.

When considering the genesis of Lawson’s imagery, the question is not “what/who?” but the “where/when?” motif and its place in both sentimental memory and tradition. For Kraus, on the other hand, following the original reference material through its distortions requires a kind of detective work mired in the question of who or what the image represents.

Jeff Kraus (b. 1985, Kalamazoo, MI) resides and works in Brooklyn, NY. In 2011 he received a BFA with an emphasis in Printmaking from Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Kraus’s work emphasizes the performative act of mark-making transcribed through formal explorations of the material. His approach to painting is immediate, compulsive, and rhythmic. Jeff has exhibited in galleries across Europe and the United States. He recently completed an artist residency at PADA Studios in Portugal. His work was featured in the Wall Street Journal and Whitehot Magazine.

Natan Lawson (b. 1988, Baltimore, MD) is a Baltimore-based artist who received his BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2015, and an individual artist award in sculpture through the Maryland State Arts Council the following year. Natan’s work has been exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Resort (Baltimore, MD), Seasons LA, Cleo Gallery (Savannah, GA), and Top Cat Gallery (NYC). Natan’s work is included in multiple private collections as well as the Kadist collection, Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, and Capital One’s headquarters in MacLean, VA. In the Spring of 2022, he will be releasing a zine with Hato Press and will be a contributing artist in a group show at Soft Times Gallery (SF) this Spring.