Selenas Mountain is pleased to present Aurelia Aurita, an exhibition of works by Antonia Kuo, Rocco Ruglio-Misurell, and John Szlasa. This exhibition brings together a selection of works that explore the multifarious terrain of abstract sculpture. These artists touch on techniques and processes from photography, printmaking, painting, and other image-making disciplines to create sculptural pieces that are both visual and visceral. It is a challenge to identify what exactly ties these artworks together, it is something bigger than an aura or an affinity. In marine biology, a school of jellyfish is often referred to as a “bloom” or a “swarm.” This nomenclature is appropriate for this anomalous group of artworks. A grouping that exists as both noun and verb, ever-shifting between object and action, fluidly evading classification.

Antonia Kuo creates abstract image-based works utilizing experimental darkroom practices and sculptural objects exploring elements of time and materiality. For this exhibition, Kuo will be presenting a series of ceramic sculptures and large-scale chemigram silver-gelatin prints. In both instances, the work has undergone a state-change process, one through a resist/masking photo chemistry technique, and the other, through the lost wax process of firing ceramic molds in a kiln. Despite the divergent means of production, Kuo’s work embodies unique explorations of process, texture, color and form.

Rocco Ruglio-Misurell makes sculptural assemblages from industrial materials and spray-painted textiles. The play of translucent materials with rigid armatures gives his installations a lightness and feeling of impermanence not often associated with sculpture. The iridescent color patterns on planes of mesh fabric act as a field to float other collaged objects, which each carry their own material history.

John Szlasa creates hulking gestural sculptures through a process of layering hydrocal, pigment, burlap, aqua resin, and fiber glass. Playing with weight and balance, his work often embodies a kinetic tension that defies gravity. With this exacting presence, his use of color and form pushes his pieces into the crux of sculpture and painting.

* "Aurelia Aurita" is the scientific name for the "moon jellyfish."

Antonia Kuo
Antonia Kuo (b. 1987, New York, NY) is an interdisciplinary artist working with photography, film, sculpture, drawing, painting and printmaking. She received an MFA from Yale University, her BFA from School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Tufts University, and a one-year certificate from the School of the International Center of Photography under the Alan L. Model Grant. Antonia was awarded the Robert and Stephanie Olmsted Award as a MacDowell Colony Fellow, as well as fellowships at Mass MoCA, The Banff Centre, Center for Photography at Woodstock, The Vermont Studio Center and Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto. Her work has exhibited internationally at the Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA PS1, Eyebeam, Microscope Gallery, Pioneer Works, and the Knockdown Center in New York; the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal in Montreal; and the West Bund Art Fair in Shanghai, among others. Her work is in private collections and the permanent collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art and Centre Pompidou.

Rocco Ruglio-Misurell
Rocco Ruglio-Misurell is a Berlin based artist with a BFA from The Art Institute of Boston and an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was born in Newark, NJ. In 2009, Ruglio-Misurell received a Fulbright Fellowship to Berlin. Recent exhibitions include a two person show at KH7artspace in Aarhus, Denmark (2018), a solo show at the Helen Day Art Center in Stowe, VT (2017), and a two person show at LVL3 in Chicago (2016). Past residencies include Mass Moca (2017), The Wassaic Project (2017), Vermont Studio Center (2016), Skowhegan (2011) and Ox-Bow (2008).

Along with Carrick Bell, Ruglio-Misurell is the co-director of Horse & Pony, an artist-run studio and project space with the aim of providing artists, curators, and other project spaces the opportunity to extend or act outside of their existing practices.

John Szlasa
John Szlasa (b. New Jersey, 1982) received an MFA from the Yale School of Art (painting and printmaking) in 2013 and has exhibited in group shows at South First Gallery, Family Business, David Zwirner summer group show, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Pratt Institute. In 2016, Szlasa had a solo exhibition at Museumofamericabooks in Brooklyn, NY entitled “Fatigue Bones”. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.