FOR 2/8

CUE ART FOUNDATION KAREN TAM & TOM SECREST

ak/gs set 1/30; #727477

NEW YORK CITY — The Cue Art Foundation is presenting works by contemporary artists Karen Tam and Tom Secrest at the gallery through March 8.

Tam’s installation work employs a delicate balance of humor, confrontation and innovation to promote awareness and change in regards to cultural identity and authenticity. The artist works in many different media, including music, video and sculpture. Blended together, the finished product is both poignant and functional.

Tam, a Canadian-based artist, strives to wittily point out Western culture’s fascination with, and prejudice toward, Chinese culture through the West’s notions of the Chinese and the reproduction of Chinese culture. Also of interest is the historical and current production of Eastern goods for Western taste, something Tam investigates through her installation at Cue Art Foundation, her first solo exhibition in New York.

Since receiving a BFA from Concordia University, Montreal, and an MFA from the school of the Art Institute of Chicago, Tam has exhibited in Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom and the United States.

In 2006, Tam was awarded the Joseph Stauffer Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts for most outstanding young visual artist. She has also received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts et des letters du Quebec, and Fonds pour la Formation de Chercheurs et l’Aide a la Recherche, Quebec.

Louisiana-based artist Tom Secrest has always accompanied his work as a printmaker with countless numbers of drawings and paintings. Incredibly prolific, the artist possesses thousands of notebooks containing his work.

In his first solo exhibition in New York, the works on view comprise poignant examples of the artist’s unique imagination and recurring themes from the past several years, as well as self portraits, which he began in undergraduate school and continued throughout his career, often inserting his own image alongside fantastical characters.

Flat, geometric shapes and eyeless, isolated figures mix with the artist’s muted, earthen palette to create a cryptic world where the line between the ethereal and the substantial is blurred. The inclusion of the artist’s own likeness in these works underlines the complete incorporation of his work and inspirations in all facets of his life and environment.

Secrest was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1942, and received his BFA and MFA from Ohio University in Athens. His pieces are in a number of prestigious collections including The Print Collection of The New York Public Library; The Print Collection, New Orleans Museum of Art; and The Collection of The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va.

The Cue Art Foundation is at 511 West 25th Street. For information, 212-206-3583 or www.cueartfoundation.org.