Elana Herzog
For several years, Herzog has been making work in which she attaches found textiles to constructed wall panels using thousands of metal staples. Parts of the fabric and the staples are then removed and sometimes reapplied leaving a residue of shredded fabric and perforated wall surface with densely stapled and built-up areas elsewhere. The resulting images seem to simultaneously emerge from and disappear into the wall. Recently, Herzog has developed increasingly architectural projects that alter the spaces in which she works by designing and building walls and other more eccentric forms whose surfaces she works upon. She is currently planning a project with the University of North Carolina in response to the crisis in manufacturing in the state, particularly in the textile and furniture industries whose histories are closely related. Herzog's work comments on the history of labor, capital, industrialization and technology, and its relevance to our world today.

Elana Herzog lives and works in New York. She has held several solo exhibitions, including: Coarse Goods, Catherine J. Smith Gallery, Boone, NC (2008); Making Traces (with Lieven DeBoeck), LMAK Projects, NY (2007); Plaid, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn (2007); W(e)ave (collaboration with Michael Schumacher), Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, CT (2007); Wallscape, Gahlberg Gallery, College of Dupage (2006); Civilization and its Discontents, Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Ithaca, NY (2005); So Bennington (with Eve Sussman), Usdan Gallery, Bennington, VT (2005); and Negative Capability, Diverse Works, Houston, TX (2002). The artist has participated in several group exhibitions, including: Perverted by Theatre, Apex Art, New York (2008); Ho Hum all Ye Faithful, Bravin Lee, New York (2007); Material Pursuits, Robert Hull Fleming Museum, Burlington, VT (2007); Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting, Museum of Art and Design, New York (2007); and Intelligent Design, Momenta Art, Brooklyn (2007). Herzog has been the recipient of various awards, including: Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2007); Individual Artists Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts (2007); Lillian Elliot Award (2004); and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (1999).

More info: www.elanaherzog.com

Sarah Kabot
Kabot's work examines the act of artistic production within the boundaries of contemporary art. It calls into question the significance of an object through reproduction and manipulation of that object and emphasizes the shift between reproduction and original. Making for the artist unravels and reveals structure at a precise level. The sculptures and installations respond to quotidian objects, and take visual cues and materials from that form to create a secondary experience of the object or location. The pieces use systems of copying, mirroring and amplification to thoroughly analyze the structures of a chosen object or space. The work proposes an alteration in comprehension, encouraging the viewer to question his or her own perceptions and attention. The meaning, significance or location of objects is not fixed. An infinite number of possibilities exist for each form, each of which is dependent upon histories, experiences and point of view.

Sarah Kabot was born 1976 in Royal Oak, Michigan and is currently an assistant professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Kabot earned her MFA in Fiber at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2002 and her BFA at the University of Michigan in 1998. The artist has held several recent solo and group exhibitions, including: One by One, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn (2008); Paper City, Mixed Greens, New York (2008); New Angle, Bliss Gallery, Youngstown, OH (2008); Retreat, Raw & Co. Gallery, Cleveland, OH (2007); Hot House: Expanding the Field of Fiber at Cranbrook, 1970-2007, Cranbrok University (2007); Trace, Kirkland Arts Center Gallery, WA (2007); Noting the Overlooked, Firelands Association for the Visual Arts, Oberlin, OH (2007); Rock, Paper, Scissors, Valley Art Center, Chagrin Falls, OH (2007); On the Flip Side, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland (2006); and Drawing No Conclusions, Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI (2006).

More info: www.sarahkabot.com

Alyssa Phoebus
Pheobus transforms the lyrics of love songs and other found texts into images that initiate a critical examination of the intersections of violence, sexuality, desire and restraint. Marked by thousands of letter fragments and a proliferation of barbed lines, spikes, jagged edges, scar-like seams and X's, the surfaces of her drawings are sites of sublimation for libidinal energy channeled through an idiosyncratic form of disciplined labor. Large, sculptural and densely worked, they perform the accumulative motions of textile practice in order to both stage and re-imagine a form of artistic labor, long tethered to feminine subjectivity. The drawings explicitly recall the embroidered alphabet sampler, the coercive craft-document that certified private life marriage, and the domestic labor of generations of women. By means of monumental reconfigurations of this form, Pheobus' drawings thrust representations of intimacy and sexuality into the realm of confrontational public address.

Alyssa Pheobus was born 1982 in Frederick, Maryland and currently lives and works in New York City. Her work has been featured in many recent exhibitions, including: Zero Zone, Tracy Williams, Ltd., New York (2008); Summer Mix Tape: Volume One, Exit Art, New York (2008); New York School, Rohrer Fine Art, Laguna Beach, CA (2008); Opportunity as Community: Artists Select Artists, Dieu Donné, New York (2008); Columbia MFA Thesis Exhibition, Fisher Landau Center for Art, Long Island City (2008); and Text Messages, Adam Baumgold Gallery, New York (2007). The artist has been has been the recipient of several awards and fellowships, including: the Andrew Fisher Fellowship, Columbia University (2007); Leroy Neiman Fellowship, Columbia University (2007); and the Marshall-Allison Travel Award, Yale University (2004).

More info: www.alyssapheobus.com

Zoë Sheehan Saldaña
Saldaña's work incorporates photography, digital media, drawing, fiber sculpture and craft techniques to embrace performative, relational and living approaches to art making and viewing. Her work is about the material that it is made of which changes from piece to piece. Over the last several years, Saldaña has been replacing mass-produced, inexpensive, commercial items with handmade duplicates and exhibits the documentation of these actions. Her work examines notions, such as the shifting value of the ‘handmade’ in art, the dynamic between low and high art forms, the imperfect and often additive nature of copying and reproduction, and the multiple roles of the audience in the viewing experience.

Zoë Sheehan Saldaña earned her MFA at the Rochester Institute of Technology and is currently an assistant professor at Baruch College. Saldaña has held several solo exhibitions, including: Southwest School of Art and Craft, San Antonio, TX (2008); Homegrown, Art Moving Projects, Brooklyn (2007); Pace University Gallery, Pleasantville, NY (2006); Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT (2005); Meanwhile, Light Work, Syracuse, NY (2005); and The Brunswick Window, Jersey City, NJ (2002). The artist’s work has been included in several group exhibitions, including: Working Men, Analix Forever, Geneva, Switzerland (2008); Market Forces, Carriage Trade, New York (2008); Gestures of Resistance, Gray Matters, Dallas, TX (2008); Transactions, Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas (2007); Digital Political Timelapse, Long Island University (2007); Photography Annual, Silverstein Gallery, New York (2007); Threaded, Spring, Brooklyn (2007); Well-Dressed, Nathan Cummings Foundation, New York (2007); Graphic Havoc, Firehouse Gallery, Burlington, VT (2007); and Altered, Stitched, and Gathered, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY (2006).

More info: www.zoesheehan.com

Suture, 2006
oil on panel
24 x 18 inches

Chuck Webster was born 1970 in Binghamton, New York and currently lives and works in New York City. He has held several solo exhibitions, including: Devotional Pictures, Salander O’Reilly Gallery, New York (2007); Working Groups: Paintings & Works on Paper by Chuck Webster, Weston Art Gallery, Cincinnati, OH (2007); Messengers: Recent Work, OSP Gallery, Boston (2007); From A Friend, Helen Nyborg Gallery, Copenhagen (2007); Working Groups, Zieher Smith (2006); Drawings, Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA (2005); Hard Candy, Zieher Smith (2005); and Plenty, Zieher Smith (2004). Webster’s work is in the collection of several museums, including: the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles; Baltimore Museum of Art; and the Beineck Library, Yale University. Webster has been recognized with various awards and fellowships, including: the Space Program, Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation (2006); and Winter Fellowship, Fine Arts Work Center (2004).

More info: www.ziehersmith.com

Shirley Wegner
Wegner began working on the series Studies for Construction Sites and Ruins in 2006. Her goal was to record and study thoughts about the cyclical relationship of construction and destruction. Wegner began by making pencil and acrylic studies that were initially made for installations that she builds to photograph. The studies slowly moved away from being works on paper and became investigations that were more and more about the language of working in paper. The gestures of cutting, layering, aligning, juxtaposing, folding, tearing, concealing and revealing seem to echo acts of construction and ruining. Working with paper brought closer the process of image-making and the ideas she was researching.

Shirely Wegner was born in Tel Aviv, Israel and now lives and works in New York City. She has had many recent national and international solo and group exhibitions, including: On Landscape, Gray, and Other Geographies, Museum Goch, Germany (2007); Gray Area, Habres & Partner Gallery, Vienna (2007); In-between, Zwischenraum, Dusseldorf (2007); Aqua Art Miami, Habers & Parner Gallery, Miami (2007); Connected, Altes Museum, Moenchengladbach, Germany (2006); and Close Connections, Art Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum (2006). Wegner’s work is the collections of several museums and foundations, including: the Goch Museum; Tel Aviv Museum of Art; collection of Jacques and Eugenie O'Hana; City of Moenchengladbach; Atelier Stipendium of Moenchengladbach; and the Susman Family Art Foundation collection.

More info: www.re-title.com