For this year's iteration of NADA Miami, JDJ is thrilled to feature a group presentation with Myles Bennett, Heather Guertin, Minako Iwamura, Shawn Kuruneru, Russell Tyler, and Jamie Gray Williams.
Myles Bennett
b. 1983, Nashville, TN, lives & works in Brooklyn, NY
Using the grain of the canvas as his guide, Myles Bennett explores its material capabilities in unique and innovative ways. The resulting works, which incorporate ink, acrylic, graphite and colored pencil, blur the divisions between painting, drawing, textile, and sculpture, and embody a sense of space both within and beyond the two dimen- sional plane. Bennett received his BFA and BArch from the Rhode Is- land School of Design.
Myles Bennett, Tangent Waves #1,2024, Ink, Acrylic, and Graphite on Canvas, 39 x 36 in (99.1 x 91.4 cm)
Myles Bennett, Prism Shard #7, 2024, Ink, Acrylic, Graphite and Colored Pencil on Canvas, 48 x 60 in (121.9 x 152.4 cm)
Heather Guertin
b. 1981, Worcester, MA, lives and works in Red Hook, NY
Awash in color and texture, Heather Guertin’s intricate oil paintings are derived from images she finds in discarded books. Guertin searches for her paint- ings through the material she comes across, allowing the found imagery to guide the form, color and value in the painting. She manipulates the paint in highly textured ways, turning realistic subject matter into abstraction through her brushwork: large, thick swoops of oil paint and tiny raised dotson top of fields of color, a reference to the printing mechanics of the found images. The resulting works are, in essence, an act of transformation, as she filters the collages through her own painterly vision. Guertin received her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Heather Guertin, Stonecrop, 2024, Oil on canvas, 48 x 40 in (121.9 x 101.6 cm)
Heather Guertin, Chrome, 2024, Oil on canvas, 66 x 54 in (167.6 x 137.2 cm)
Minako Iwamura
b. 1967, Australia, lives in Brooklyn, works in Ridgewood, NY
Minako Iwamura’s paintings combine curvilinear forms and subtle shifts in color to produce compositions that radiate a kind of energetic pulse. Her interest lies in the exploration of dualities— geometry and nature, the singular and the collective, premeditated delineation and intuitive movement—and the slippage between them. With their biomorphic shapes, Iwamura’s paintings exist in a liminal state that feels both abstract and corporeal. She uses geometry, color, and pattern to explore the psychological undertones conveyed by the structures found within the paintings. Iwamura received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.
Minako Iwamura, Split, 2024, Oil and white charcoal on cradled wood panel, 40 x 30 in (101.6 x 76.2 cm)
Minako Iwamura, Sixty Seven, 2024, Oil and white charcoal on cradled wood panel, 10 x 8 in (25.4 x 20.3 cm)
Shawn Kuruneru
b. 1984, Canada, lives and works in Montreal, Canada.
Shawn Kuruneru’s abstract paintings draw influence from 9th-century Chinese “floating perspective” painting philosophy (a kind of multi-perspective precursor to cubism), expressionist woodblock prints and the New York School of abstract expressionism—as well as the artist’s own interest in music and comic books. Kuruneru’s work examines the narrative potential of mark-making based in the context of different idioms, exploring both the conceptual and graphic aspects of his medium. The artist received a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.
Shawn Kuruneru, Little Wing, 2024, Acrylic on raw canvas, 24x20in (61x50.8cm)
Shawn Kuruneru, Sea Fireflies, 2024, Acrylic on raw canvas, 24x20in (61x50.8cm)
Russell Tyler
b. 1981 in Summertown, TN lives and works in Brooklyn, NY
The natural and the constructed worlds collide in Russell Tyler’s sensuous and tactile abstract paintings. Tyler oscil- lates between working within two dis- tinct series: highly structured rectilin- ear paintings reminiscent of Modernist artists like Josef Albers, and gestural, expressive imagined landscapes ren- dered in impasto oil paint. Acidic pal- ettes, seemingly unnatural or not of this world, in fact are taken from the artist’s early life in the tropical land- scapes of Hawaii. Tyler received his BFA from Concordia University and his MFA from the Pratt Institute.
Russell Tyler, Dreamcast, 2023, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 40x30in (101.6x76.2cm)
Russell Tyler, SHB, 2023, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 24x20in (61x50.8cm)
Jamie Gray Williams
b. 1989, Evansville, IN, lives and works in Philadelphia, PA
The sweeping gestures, bold color, and dynamic linework found in Jamie Gray Williams’ paintings reflects an interpretation of the relationships between living bodies, their porous boundaries, and how they can be affected or even completely transformed from their interactions with other human or non-human entities. The precise lines in her paintings—one can think of them as drawings—bring a feeling of coalescence and solidity to the compositions. From these lines, bodies start to emerge, as though the paintings are transforming before our very eyes. A swoop of paint becomes a pointed nose, an angular shape becomes the crook of an arm, a curved, expressive gesture becomes a hip.
Jamie Gray Williams, Light Passing Through Both Ends, 2023, Acrylic and oil on canvas, 32x26in (81.3x66cm)
Jamie Gray Williams, The Hand Refrains (Pygmalion), 2024, Acrylic and oil on canvas, 60x50in (152.4x127cm)