Thomas Beale: Conjure

February 28 - April 4, 2009 OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 6-9PM

Kinsey/DesForges is delighted to present New York-based artist Thomas Beale
with his first solo show in Los Angeles. The exhibition of mixed-media sculpture
opens with a reception on February 28th and continues through April 4th.

While highlighting the intricate textures of fallen branches and scattered shells,
Thomas Beale reinvigorates the possibilities of sculpture, reclaiming the destinies
of these otherwise forgotten materials. His resulting assemblages form a fusion
between the human-made and the natural, where a street reflector becomes an
object of curiosity and mysterious origin and a vintage record player swells into
a dramatic sculpture besieged by wooden fractals, like budding coral overtaking
a sunken ship. The artist allows his highly wrought, tactile surfaces to accumulate
over found objects, while other works are born solely from the elemental nature of
the raw materials themselves. Beale explains, "The working process is slow,
labor intensive, and meditative, and I am interested in how the final pieces, while
static and still, may resonate with this concentration of energy."

Born in Rochester, NY in 1978, Thomas Beale studied at Dartmouth College,
where he received a B.A. in Studio Art and English Literature in 2000. In 2003
Beale was selected for one of five U.S.-Japan Creative Artist Fellowships, an
award administered by the National Endowment for the Arts. He was the young-
est recipient of this honor in the award's 30-year history. The fellowship gave
him the resources to travel to Kyoto, Japan, where he studied traditional
architecture and made sculpture for nine months. In 2004, Beale returned to
the U.S. and moved to New York City, where he established Chelsea¹s innovative
Honey Space gallery and continues to live and work today.