ampersand international arts is pleased to announce two intertwined solo shows opening February 23rd, 2018. Thisness, paintings by Christine Ponelle, explores interior and exterior terrain inspired by sustained and intimate habitation in wildnerness. Liquiddity, works by Matthew Rogers, considers how data is stratifying and re-patterning our human and natural worlds. 

​

Christine Ponelle’s paintings capture with vivid specificity the animistic notion that all natural objects, phenomena, and the universe itself possess souls. The characters in her work—whether people, rocks or trees—convey tremendous personality and a sense that having a soul is a beautiful complicated affair. Formally concerned with pictorial expression and the enduring question of when a work of art is done, her paintings quiver at the boundary between suggestion and assertion.

​

Matthew Rogers’s work depicts mysterious figures and colorful coruscated landscapes with their defining features replaced by what appear to be fingerprints or crazed barcodes. Taken from one perspective, the repetition of pattern across people and environment offers a vision of a shared life force. Viewed from a different slant, the patterns become malevolent depictions of the propensity of data to replace what’s real with what’s quantifiable.


Christine Ponelle
Born and raised in France, Christine Ponelle now lives and works in San Francisco. Her paintings and drawings have been shown in the Bay Area including at the Berkeley Art Center, Adobe Books, Intersection for the Arts, and Skyline College Art Gallery. She has also shown in Switzerland at the Fri-Art Kunsthalle of Fribourg and the Mamco in Geneva, in Norway at the Stenersenmuseet of Oslo, as well as in France and Japan. Ponelle graduated with a MFA in painting and printmaking from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Aix-en Provence, France.

Matthew Rogers
Matthew Rogers is a painter, printmaker and sculptor who lives and works in San Francisco. He has shown in the Bay Area in solo and group shows including at Adobe Books, Intersection for the Arts, and Skyline College. He has also shown internationally in Switzerland at the Fri-Art Kunsthalle of Fribourg and the Mamco in Geneva, in Norway at the Stenersenmuseet of Oslo, as well as in Japan and Turkey. Rogers has an MFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute and a BFA in Lithography from Humboldt State University.

Curators:
Theodora Mauro co-directs the alternative gallery space SATELLITE OF. LOVE, and is director of ampersand international arts. 

​

Tracy Wheeler co-directs the alternative gallery space SATELLITE OF. LOVE, is a regular curator at ampersand international arts, and is a strategic consultant for artists and cultural spaces or initiatives. 

 

 

Opening Reception:
Friday, February 23rd
6pm-9pm

​

​

Exhibition Dates:
February 23rd - March 24th, 2018

 

 

Gallery Hours:
Thursdays and Fridays
12pm-5pm
or by appointment

​