Summer's Gonna Hurt You—
Charles Koegel
January 16—March 2, 2010
Summer's Gonna Hurt You is meant to hint at the future relationship between the built and the natural environment. The imagery in the exhibition, specifically in the drawings and video, exaggerates architectural creations and designs. This is an attempt to question their actuality and the potential world in which they exist. The concept behind the installation is to represent an architectural-like environment that grows as spontaneously as nature, and to communicate a response to urban development.
For his project at Dimensions Variable, Koegel will be working in the space and at The Fountainhead Residency preparing a sculptural structure composed of mostly cardboard and paint to be displayed on the floor and around the space. This work will be supported with a video and drawings that will be in a dialogue with the overall theme above.
Koegel's work concentrates on New York City and its predominantly architectural landscape. He responds to his environment using different artistic practices. All of his work reveals geometrical forms found in this urban setting. The depictions as well as the materials and processes he use speak about this extensive and ever-changing subject matter while introducing both representational and abstract concepts.
Hip Hop music is also of particular interest to Koegel. It's a musical genre that partly grew out of the urban psyche. The technique of sampling use in Hip Hop music involves layering sounds taken from obscure or forgotten music. The process of searching through old records and bringing out short portions of music seems to go hand in hand with a concept of abstraction and the passage of time. To the artist the practice of looping samples is also visually connected with the preponderance of repetitive patterns or pervasiveness of grid-like geometrical forms in his images.
Born in New York in 1980, Charles Koegel received a bachelor of arts from Trinity College in 2003. He went on to receive a Master's degree in fine arts in 2008 from Pratt Institute.
While at Trinity, Charles received the Anna Helman Prize for painting his junior year while majoring in Art History. Since graduate school Charles has created works for group shows at Exit Art, Brooklyn Art Alternative, and exhibited paintings at Slate Gallery in Williamsburg and The Painting Center in SoHo. He also participated in an artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center.
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