Philadelphia, PA - Tiger Strikes Asteroid Philadelphia is pleased to present Individual Gravities, an exhibition featuring new works by Alexis Granwell, Elana Herzog, and Trish Tillman, curated by Alex Ebstein. Individual Gravities brings together the works of three artists whose practices stretch between classifications of sculpture, painting, and installation. Dense, rigid materials achieve levitation, while paper, fabric and voluminous structures take on density and weight, rooted to their supporting planes. Conceptual and thematic overlaps subtly weave together an environment that examines material value through a personal and social lens. Reclaimed and found materials are minimally altered, presented as small monuments or added as adornments to constructed surface. While gravity acts as a force defied by this group of work, it also connotes significant importance and points to the three individual perspectives.

Alexis Granwell’s background in printmaking and paper-making inspires the inventive material sensibility and physicality she brings to her sculptural work. Adhering handmade paper to papier-mâché and wire armatures, Granwell constructs assemblages that suggest ruination, artifact, mineral, and body. The tactility of paper forms a dynamic energy in contrast to the inert quality of the industrial materials, which act as both support and remnant. Together, these materials create fragile structures that retain a corporeal presence.

Elana Herzog’s immersive works balance rigor and playfulness, engaging with the impermanence of material matter. She incorporates metal staples that embed and deconstruct found textiles into various surfaces, including gallery walls and mixed media constructions. Herzog uses materials that are non-precious, second-hand, discarded or cheaply mass-produced to consider aspects of entropy, pleasure, pain, attraction, and revulsion. Her current focus is on the global migrations of culture and technology as seen through the lens of textile.

Trish Tillman’s modular wall sculptures combine hand-sewn and upholstered geometric shapes with industrial objects, human hair, rope, and jewelry. Her materials grip, puncture, and drape over each other in meticulous forms, often arranged in perfect symmetry. These works are well-crafted but punk. Tillman’s hybrid creations suggest talismans, fragmented bodies, and ostentatious furniture, questioning notions of ritual, fantasy, and tastefulness.

Artist Bios:

Alexis Granwell received an MFA from The University of Pennsylvania and a BFA from Boston University. She is a co-director and a founding members of Tiger Strikes Asteroid PHL. She is a professor at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and Moore College of Art and Design. Recent exhibitions include “Alchemy, Typology, Entropy” at Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; “Code Switch” at Ortega y Gasset Projects; and “Excavation, Illusion + Artifact” at Munson Williams Proctor Art Museum, Utica, NY. She has had solo exhibitions at Europos Parkas Museum, Vilnius, Lithuania; Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA; Giampietro Gallery, New Haven, CT; Arlington Arts Center, Arlington, VA; and Bryan Miller Gallery, Houston, TX. Group exhibitions include Field Projects, New York, NY; Elephant, Los Angeles, CA; IPCNY, New York, NY; Trestle Gallery, New York, NY; SELECT Art Fair, New York, NY; Artist-Run, Miami, FL; Hemphill Gallery, Washington DC; SOIL, Seattle, WA; and The University of Richmond Art Museum, Richmond, VA. Granwell is a recipient of The Independence Foundation Fine Arts Fellowship Grant for 2015. She has also been awarded residencies at the I-Park Foundation, East Hadaam, CT; and Jentel Artist Residency, Banner,  WY. Her work has been reviewed in The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The Globe and Mail, Two Coats of Paint, Title Magazine, Art F City, and New American Paintings.

Elana Herzog lives and works in New York City. She is a recipient of a 2017 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Herzog recently returned from Tbilisi, Georgia where she participated in Artisterium 10, an annual exhibition of international artists. In 2017 she premiered Martha (The Searchers) a new ballet by Julia K. Gleich to which she contributed the visual components. Solo exhibitions include the Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates; Studio 10, New York, NY; The Boiler (Pierogi), New York, NY; the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Danbury, CT; Smack Mellon, New York, NY; Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; Lmak Projects, New York, NY; Morgan Lehman Gallery, PPOW Gallery, New York, NY; Diverseworks, Houston, TX; and The Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO. Her work has been exhibited internationally in Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Canada, Chile, and the Netherlands. Group exhibitions include the Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY; The Weatherspoon Museum; Greensboro, NC; The Kohler Museum in Sheboygan, WO; David Castillo Gallery, Miami, FL; The Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY; and The Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY.  She received the Anonymous Was A Woman Award in 2009, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award in 2007, NYFA Fellowships in 2007 and 1999, the 2004 Lillian Elliot Award, and the 1999 Joan Mitchell Award. This year, Herzog will be in residence at The MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH. Her work has been widely reviewed including Art in America, The New York Times, ArtNews, Time Out New York, Bomb Magazine, Art Papers, and The Brooklyn Rail. 

Trish Tillman is a NY based artist originally from the Washington, DC area, who received an MFA from School of Visual Arts and a BFA from James Madison University, with studies at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. She is represented by Asya Geisberg Gallery in NYC where she has had two solo exhibitions. Tillman has also had solo exhibitions at Civilian Art Projects, Washington, DC, and the Arlington Arts Center, Arlington, VA, with a solo booth at NADA NY in 2016 with Asya Geisberg, New York, NY. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Regina Rex, New York, NY; CUE Art Foundation, New York, NY; Present Company, New York, NY; Cydonia Gallery, Fort Worth, TX; Emerson Dorsch, Miami, FL; Elephant Art Space, Los Angeles, CA; and Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur, RJ, India, among others. She is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation 2009 MFA Grant, a 2015 Fountainhead Residency in Miami, FL, the Jaipur Kala Chaupal 2017 Residency in Jaipur, India, and the Visual Arts Center of Richmond 2018 Residency in Richmond, VA.  Her work has been reviewed in ARTFORUM, ArtFCity, Artsy Magazine, Art Observed, The Observer, and The New Indian Express. Tillman is also an educator and has been a professor and lecturer at Monmouth University, George Washington University, Rutgers University, and the University of Maryland.

Guest Curator Bio:

Alex Ebstein is an artist, curator, and writer based in Baltimore, MD. She received her MFA from Towson University in 2015, and a BA in studio art from Goucher College in 2007. She is the co-founder and co-director of Nudashank in Baltimore, MD. Her work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Cuevas Tilleard, New York, NY;  Victori + Mo, New York, NY; Frutta Gallery, Rome, Italy; and at SophiaJacob, Baltimore, MD. Recent group exhibitions include Lord Ludd, Philadelphia, PA; Greenpoint Terminal Gallery, New York, NY; Central Park Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; CES Gallery, Los Angeles, CA;  and Loyal Gallery, Stockholm Sweden. She is an adjunct professor at Maryland Institute College of Art and at American University.