Emergent Strata

New York Virtual Volcano Observatory

Open Weekends

Colonels Row - Colonels Row - Building 410A

Pic­ture a cross-sec­­tion of earth, lay­ered with the uncon­for­mi­ties and frac­tures of geo­log­ic time. In Emer­gent Stra­ta, Tes­sa Grun­don and Gene Kiegel uncov­er these lay­ers, their ves­tiges and sed­i­ments, in land­scapes: along the con­tour lines of a river­bank, through the intri­cate archi­tec­ture of bees and their waxy walls, and in the neg­a­tive space of indus­tri­al ruins. Col­ors pour forth from geo­log­i­cal folds, seams, and for­ma­tions; this work allows us to see these com­pressed worlds, cross-cut­t­ing and over­lap­ping the rel­a­tive time of humans and non­hu­mans in the earth-record.

On view week­ends through July 31 at New York Vir­tu­al Vol­cano Obser­va­to­ry, Colonels Row Build­ing 410A

About the Artists

Tes­sa Grun­don is a British artist work­ing on both sides of the Atlantic. Her work is root­ed in​“place” using ele­ments of the land­scape to explore envi­ron­men­tal issues. For the last few years she has been based on Gov­er­nors Island in NYC Har­bor work­ing with arts and sci­ence orga­ni­za­tions includ­ing SWALE, Urban Soil Insti­tute, NYU Gallatin’s Wet­lab, Works on Water and Under­wa­ter New York focus­ing on engage­ment with the envi­ron­ment and edu­ca­tion. Most recent­ly, she has start­ed work­ing with Artist Space as a teach­ing artist on the Low­er East Side. Oth­er part­ner­ships and res­i­den­cies include Brook­lyn Navy Yard, Art.Earth, I‑Park, Wave Hill, PLACE Col­lec­tive and Sail Britain. She states:​“My work is root­ed in​“place” using mate­ri­als from the nat­ur­al and human world reflect­ing the Anthro­pocene in which we live. Using ele­ments of the land­scape, my work is inspired and influ­enced by the topog­ra­phy and his­to­ry of a place and its ever-chang­ing envi­ron­ment. This ranges from the ris­ing and increas­ing­ly pol­lut­ed tides to the effect of peo­ple on com­mu­ni­ty, cli­mate and land­scape, to man him­self and the shared visu­al lan­guage of nat­ur­al forms.”

Gene Kiegel is an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary artist cur­rent­ly based in New York. His work chal­lenges our under­stand­ing of the uni­verse, expos­ing an omnipresent uni­ver­sal lan­guage through a wide range of inno­v­a­tive and uncon­ven­tion­al mate­ri­als and artis­tic process­es. Born in Odessa, Ukraine, Kiegel immi­grat­ed in 1989 as a Jew­ish refugee to the Unit­ed States. The shock of loss and relo­ca­tion impelled Kiegel to chan­nel his emo­tions into art — what began as an instinc­tive cop­ing mech­a­nism has evolved into a life­long prac­tice. Kiegel holds a Bach­e­lor of Arts in Envi­ron­men­tal Design & Archi­tec­ture from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Berke­ley (1998). In 2000, Kiegel moved to Los Ange­les and began his artis­tic jour­ney with pho­tog­ra­phy. Ana­logue pho­tog­ra­phy inspired new art projects, prompt­ing Kiegel to move to New York. Kiegel has exhib­it­ed inter­na­tion­al­ly (New York, Mia­mi, Los Ange­les, Lon­don, Paris, St. Peters­burg) with art­work in the col­lec­tions of Elli Tahari, Tiffany Mas­ter­son, Moishe Mana, Moshe Mam­rud, Miguel Men­doza, and others.