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New Paintings and the 'Matatu' Project

September 5, 2006- October 7, 2006

Reception: September 7, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Gabriela Trzebinski

George Adams Gallery

525 W 26th St

For her debut exhibition in New York, Kenyan-born painter Gabriela Trzebinski will present six recent paintings along with an installation titled "The ŒMatutu¹ Project."

Trzebinski, a self-described "white girl born in an African country, Polish father, English mother, British passport, living now in Texas," uses her multi-ethnic background as a backdrop for her faux naive paintings. Black Africans figure prominently in her work, giving form to Trzebinski¹s exploration of diverse social and political issues‹from cultural dislocation to transgender identity and illegal immigration.

El Papa Murio por Nosotros en la Frontera, for example, depicts a dying figure beneath a high barbed-wire fence. Cross-pollinating her experience of Africa with the current immigration debate in the US, Trzebinski imbues the narrative with a mythic sense enhanced by flattened perspective and stylized primitive rendering. Similarly, the compressed space in 22 of 4000: The Lost Boys of the Sudan (2006) engages a folk tradition of storytelling. Depicting the arrival of 22 Sudanese boys at a Texas airport, figures, baggage, planes, and buildings appear on a single plane against an unusual peach colored background.

The show will also include The 'Matatu' Project; a series of found wood strips painted with names appropriated from Kenyan matatu minibuses. The installation, part of an ongoing project, will feature over 300 strips vertically installed along the perimeter of the gallery. Borrowing from pop culture and gangsta rap, the minibus names such as Niggaz, Rev 14:6, and Thuglovin represent the collision of African and global culture. Trzebinski¹s simplistically painted "sticks¹ are intended as personalized totems, and like her paintings, comment on the fluidity of culture and identity.

Trzebinski currently lives and works in Houston, Texas.

Books and DVDs related to artists in this show

Location   Gallery George Adams Gallery Address 525 W 26th St New York (Chelsea) NY, 10001 United States Phone 212-564-8480 Fax 212-564-8485 Hours Tue-Sat 10-6 Nearby: All 3 galleries at 525 W 26th St

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