Craig Kucia: we left with our hearts tired

April 24, 2009 - June 05, 2009

Artist(s)

CRAIG KUCIA

Born 1975, Cleveland, OH

Lives and works in Miami, FL

EDUCTATION

2002-2003 Chelsea School of Art, London, UK

1999 B.F.A., Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH

1997 Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh, Scotland

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2014 accidental documentaries, SHAHEEN modern and contemporary art, Cleveland, OH

2009 we left with our hearts tired, SHAHEEN modern and contemporary art, Cleveland, OH

2008 authors wrote of places i had never seen, The Melvin Gallery at Florida Southern College, Lakeland, FL

2007 sundays were spent talking of rockets, Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, Hollywood, FL

music for people without friends, Kevin Bruk Gallery, Miami, FL

2006 broken smiles, lost tragedies, fractured talks, and in the end, it was perfect, Kevin Bruk Gallery, Miami, FL

2005 Kevin Bruk Gallery (at Art Basel Miami: Nova section, Miami, FL)

2004 ....and no one had anything to say, SHAHEEN modern and contemporary art, Cleveland, OH

2003 what fun our life could have been, Kevin Bruk Gallery, Miami, FL

2002 Blum & Poe, Santa Monica, CA, (two person exhibition with Aaron Noble)

2000 the days are spent..., SHAHEEN modern and contemporary art, Cleveland, OH

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2013 Koi No Yokan, 101/exhibit, Los Angeles, CA
2009 Time + Temp, Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, Hollywood, FL
Light of Day, William Busta Gallery, Cleveland, OH
2008 Thoughts on Democracy, Wolfsonian Museum, Miami Beach, FL

Summer Show, Marlborough Gallery, Chelsea, New York, NY

2005 Drawing Narrative, Wooster Art Museum, Wooster, OH

Syzygy, SHAHEEN, Cleveland, OH

Beautiful Dreamer, Spaces Gallery, Cleveland, OH

2004 Eye of the Needle, Roberts & Tilton, Los Angeles, CA

Light and Atmosphere (curated by Cheryl Hartup), Miami Art Museum. Miami, FL

2003 40" x 30", Kevin Bruk Gallery (at Art Basel Miami: Positions section, Miami, FL)

East International (curated/selected by Toby Webster and Eva Rothschild), Norwich Gallery, Norwich College of Art and

Design, England

2000 Trailer, GreeneNaftali Inc., New York, NY

1999 Student Independent Exhibition, The Reinberger Galleries, Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH (awarded "Best of

Show" - as juried by Matthew Ritchie and Luca Buvoli])

COLLECTIONS

Progressive Art Collection, Mayfield Village, OH

Miami Art Museum, Miami, FL

High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA

The Mugrabi Family Collection

ARTICLES AND REVIEWS

Utter, Douglas Max. Birds, Bees & Beyond, Scene Magazine, April, 2009
Utter, Douglas Max. The Right Stuff, Scene Magazine, April, 2009

Gibson, Allison. Craig Kucia, Beautiful Decay, #Y, 2008

Delgado, Anjanette. Rosa de otono, Vogue Latin America, Sept. 2008
Johnson, Tish. The Radar Art, Coat Check, Miami Modern Luxury, Sept/Oct, 2008
O’Rourke, Jayme. FIM Artist Showcase, Florida International Magazine, Nov. 2007
Trelles, Emma. Artist Craig Kucia’s Hypnotic Way of Remembering, South Florida Sun Sentinal, Oct. 2007
Soler, Eileen. Playful exhibit opens Hollywoo’sd Arts and Cultural Center Season, Miami Herald, Oct. 2007
Mills, Michael. Many Sundays Spent Interpreting Pictures, Broward-Palm Beach New Times, Oct. 2007
Suarez De Jesus, Carlos. Ice Meets Vice, Miami New Times, Sept. 2007
Lynn, John. Primates and Confections, Broward-Palm Beach New Times, Sept. 2007
O’Bourke, Brett. Smash Menagerie, 944 Magazine Miami, August. 2007
Sokol, Brett, Summer 2007 in Pop Culture, Ocean Drive MagazineMiami, August. 2007
Sokol, Brett, Craig Kucia’s Art has childlike appeal-but it’s serious, Miami Herald, July. 2007
Work_and _Word, art.es, No.19, 2007

Weinberg, Michelle. Craig Kucia, Tema Celeste, No. 118, 2006

Moreno, Gean. News, Miami, Contemporary Magazine, No. 86, 2006

Barrenechea, Victor. Wynwood Gallery Walk Delicious. Biscayne Boulevard Times, Oct. 2006

Suarez De Jesus, Carlos. Fall Crawl. Miami New Times. Sept. 2006

Turner, Elisa. Critic's Pick. The Miami Herald, Sept. 2006

Dunlop, Beth. The Art of the Matter. Metropolitan Home, Sept. 2006

Tranberg, Dan. New York Art Fairs help put Clevelanders on the Map. Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 2006

Tranberg, Dan. Beautiful Dreamer Awakens Romantics. Cleveland Plain Dealer, Oct. 2005

Bly, Liz. Perhance to Dream. Cleveland Free Times, Oct. 2005

Utter, Douglas Max. Post-Toastie. Angle Magazine, June 2004

Tranberg, Dan. Painter Has a Way Without Words. Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 2004

Pantsios, Anastasia. Dreams of Children. Cleveland Free Times, May 2004

Einspruch, Franklin. Remain in Light Wheel. Miami New Times, Nov. 2003

Yannopoulos, Charles. Pools of Potential. Cleveland Scene, July 2000

Press Release(s)

Craig Kucia

we left with our hearts tired

April 24^th – June 5^th, 2009

SHAHEEN modern and contemporary art is delighted to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Craig Kucia. There will be an opening reception for the artist on Friday, April 24^th from 7–9:00 p.m. The exhibition will continue through June 5^th.

For his first exhibition at SHAHEEN since 2004, Kucia continues his painterly exploration of the visual and psychological spaces that arise between memory and imagination, ultimately arriving at images that are rooted in personal and collective experience, yet tinged with an element of the fantastic and otherworldly. While Kucia continues to incorporate images of flora, fauna and the occasional human figure into his compositions, his recent work has become increasingly pre-occupied with the depiction of commonplace objects. Selected for their metaphorical characteristics, personal relevance (to the artist), and ability to act as surrogates for human entities, the often banal items and animals that populate Kucia’s vaguely narrative scenes are also chosen for their capacity to round-out and balance composition, as the artist continues to equipoise his storytelling impulse with his strong formalist concerns. Through the artist’s multifarious and lively paint handling and sophisticated compositional sensibility, the animate and inanimate in his paintings tend to reverse roles, as human and animal figures become objectified and objects take on a life of their own. The resulting paintings convey the feeling of being simultaneously awake and dreaming. As with most of Kucia’s work of the past ten years, his recent paintings tend to slip freely between genres, ultimately eluding easy classification.

Over the past four years, Kucia’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Kevin Bruk Gallery, Miami, FL; The Art and Cultural Center of Hollywood, Hollywood, FL; and an early-career retrospective/survey exhibition at Florida Southern College’s Melvin Art Gallery, which was accompanied by a catalogue. Kucia’s work is included in the permanent collections of The Miami Art Museum, Miami, FL; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; The Mugrabi Family Collection; and Progressive Art Collection, Cleveland. Kucia received his B.A. in painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1999, and went on to study at London’s Chelsea School of Art (2002-2003) before returning to Cleveland. Kucia currently lives and works in Miami, FL.

During the exhibition, SHAHEEN is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. and Thursday 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. and by appointment.

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Craig Kucia
lines, maps and 15 years of posting letters down the street, 2009
oil on canvas
54 x 54 inches

Craig Kucia
practical living takes away everything that it can, 2009
oil on canvas
54 x 54 inches

Craig Kucia
all i could remember was the remnants of our consistently inconsistent constellation, 2009
oil on canvas
84 x 108 inches

Craig Kucia
the yellow leaf, 2009
oil on canvas
30 x 30 inches

Craig Kucia
it was like the sound of a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs, 2009
oil on canvas
54 x 54 inches

Craig Kucia
songs that should never be written, 2009
oil on canvas
48 x 48 inches

Craig Kucia: we left with our hearts tired

Artist(s)

» Craig Kucia

Press Release(s)

» Craig Kucia: we left with our hearts tired