Black & White Gallery // Chelsea is very pleased to announce “The Sheltering Sky” – a group exhibition of emerging artists working in a variety of mediums: photography, painting, video and installation. There might seem to be few direct connections between these artists, but if we take a closer look we see how much their works have in common.

At the core of the exhibition is a discursive process whereby each artist attempts to investigate the everyday life disconnect between the external environment and our thoughts, dreams, attitudes and feelings.

The worlds in works selected for the exhibition with their many confusing aspects and layers of complexity are at once familiar and unnatural, they are real rooms and spaces inflected by a strong imagination that slips into dreamy fantasy. 

Michael Van Den Besselaar, Liset Castillo, Ina Geissler, Grant Miller, Andrew Piedilato, Jonas Pihl and Leigh Tarentino transform the content and meaning of physical spaces. They create a shift that is charged both intellectually and emotionally and make us believe that we have seen them many times before and know them very well.

Stefanie Bühler, Meighan Gale, KK Kozik, Georges LeBAR, Jordon Schranz, Adam Weekley and Eric White invite us into a created world in which life is scripted. They conjure up luscious and melancholic experiences that involve us in reflections on things we long for. They open doors into new worlds of dreams, dramas and iconic endings.

The exhibition title The Sheltering Sky appropriates a title of the cult classic book by Paul Bowles, a strange and complex novel from which while one emerges as if from a dream, a little reflection makes it clear that our dreams can so easily become our nightmares.