Seth Koen

My recent work has proceeded on two parallel tracks, sculpture in the real world and sculpture in a perfect world. The three-dimensional work is bound by the limits of physics, especially gravity. This often provides the moments of problem solving I find the most compelling in conceiving and realizing the work. The source materials for the prints are photographs of sculpture and drawings I have made over the last fifteen years. In translating these works back into the two-dimensional, they are freed from the bounds of the original pieces. No material, no color, no gravity! Without these constraints, they are reduced to only form. I welcome the clarity this brings, allowing drawn, painted and sculpted forms to occupy a common place.

I am originally from Maine and have recently relocated from Sacramento, CA to Easthampton, MA. After receiving my BA from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, I went on to earn my MFA from Mills College in Oakland, CA. I have shown widely, including shows in the San Francisco Bay area at Gregory Lind Gallery, c2c Project Space (in collaboration with Gary Peterson), Rena Bransten Gallery, the Richmond Art Center, Headlands Center for the Arts, Adobe Books, the LAB, and the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery. In addition, I have shown in New York with Jeff Bailey Gallery and Foley Gallery; the Brewery Project, Los Angeles; Chela, Baltimore; Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque; and Galerie Hafemann, Wiesbaden, Germany. I have been the recipient of the Trefethen, Cadogan and Kala Art Institute Fellowships, and the Jay Defeo Prize. For the past 12 years, I was the studio assistant to the sculptor Ron Nagle.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2014 c2c Projects, with Gary Petersen, c2c Project Space, San Francisco, CA 30’s in the 40’s, Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2013 Beyond a Shadow, B. Sakata Garo, Sacramento, CA 2010 Narwhellian, Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2009 A Thin Line, Jackson St. Gallery, San Francisco, CA Station to Station, B. Sakata Garo, Sacramento, CA 2008 Needle Pulling Thread, Sienna Gallery, Lenox, MA Ellipsis, Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2005 around the corner, Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2003 The Red Thread, Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco, CA AWARDS and HONORS Kala Fellowship Award, Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA, 2011 Nominated for the Painters and Sculptors Grant, The Joan Mitchell Foundation, 2009 Nominated for the SECA Award, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2006 Jay DeFeo Prize, Mills College, Oakland, CA, 2002 Graduate Research Grant, Mills College, Oakland, CA, 2002 Trefethen Fellowship for Merit, Mills College, Oakland, CA, 2001 Murphy and Cadogan Fellowship, The San Francisco Foundation, San Francisco, CA, 2001 Nominated to the Dedalus Foundation Masters of FIne Arts Fellowship, 2001