*View/purchase artwork here*

Play On: Lauren Rinaldi, Charles Clary, and Jedediah Morfit
June 7, 2024 – June 30, 2024

OPENING RECEPTION:
Friday, June 7, 2024
6:00 – 8:00 PM
RSVP here*
*appreciated but not required

*View/purchase artwork here*

Paradigm Gallery + Studio is pleased to present Play On, an exhibition of new work featuring Lauren Rinaldi, Charles Clary, and Jedediah Morfit. The exhibition renders oil painting, manipulated paper, and plaster to be a source of levity for anyone who needs it in their life. This light-hearted exhibition encourages more play in life through sarcastic, flirty, and "unserious" production methods in art. Visitors can romp through three distinct collections where artists are following instinct and experimentation. The artists are shedding the mental blocks of logic prescribed with adulthood as if they were young children facilitating playtime. Play On: Lauren Rinaldi, Charles Clary, and Jedediah Morfit will be on view on the first floor of the Paradigm Arts Building (12 N 3rd St) from June 7 through June 30, 2024, with a public opening reception on Friday, June 7 from 6:00-8:00 pm.

Lauren Rinaldi takes the humble selfie and turns it into a reminder of how small we are in the universe. For the exhibition, Rinaldi will be unveiling a series of oil paintings on panel featuring seven phases of the female form’s cheeky silhouette. Calculated poses and viewing angles orchestrate a symphony of curves that emulate the intimately known gibbous and crescent shapes. Rinaldi’s figures orbit through unassuming places like the precarious bathtub ledge or the cluttered bedroom floor and maintain their powerful sensuality like the reliable waxing and waning of the moon. The shared quality of cyclical positioning is a coy reminder not to be so burdened by the passing of time, as each rotation is minuscule compared to the life cycle of the universe. Our bodies are made of the same dust as planets and stars and therefore deserve the same worship and holy exploration, even in the form of an intimate selfie.

Charles Clary’s ongoing “Text-I-Monial” series continues with colorful patterns and pithy phrases in an exciting blowout installation. Clary’s signature process of hand-cut and layered paper sculptures adds a literal and metaphorical depth to everyday exclamations and tongue-in-cheek comebacks. Clary’s play on words assemblies are formidable in their quantity and their dynamism, pulling from classic Southern charm – BLESS YOUR HEART – to universal exclamations of discovery – CRAP. What started as a random departure into typography has now become a revelation on the currency of language, easily dispersed but adds lightness and value to any interaction.

For many years, Jedediah Morfit’s eccentric digital drawings have been starkly distanced from his plaster sculptures, but for this exhibition, he combines both practices for the first time. Morfit translates his quick, fun, low-stakes iPad drawings into urgent and unabashed motions in bas-relief pieces to fight the feeling of a lack of control in everyday life. A cartoon mouth laughing maniacally bursts out of a stoic bust in profile, creating a whimsical buoyancy despite the heavy material of molded plaster. The directive of reckless energy and instinctual fabrication welcomes experimentation throughout every step of the sculptural process – mold-making, cleaning, sanding, balancing, painting, polishing– and results in an improved formula for an otherwise slow and meticulous discipline. Not only does it give a proverbial middle finger to structure and tradition, but the collection also yields more enjoyment to its creator and its viewers.

OPENING RECEPTION:
Friday, June 7, 2024
6:00 – 8:00 PM
RSVP here*
*appreciated but not required

EXHIBITION HOURS
Thursdays • 10 AM – 6 PM
Fridays • 10 AM – 6 PM
Saturdays • 11 AM – 6 PM
Sundays • 11 AM – 5 PM
And by appointment outside of hours.

LOCATION
12 N. 3rd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106

MEDIA CONTACT
For all inquiries contact info@paradigm-gallery.com

SOCIAL MEDIA
Instagram: @ParadigmGS
TikTok: ParadigmGallery
Facebook: facebook.com/paradigmgallery

About Lauren Rinaldi
Lauren Rinaldi (b. 1983, Brooklyn, NY) is an American artist living and working in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She studied painting and drawing at Tyler School of Art, where she earned her BFA in 2006. Since then, her solo shows have included Second Shift (2022), Representative (2020); Still Standing (2018); Hunger of the Cheeky Sisters (2015); At Arm’s Length (2014); and An Accidental Masterpiece (2011), all at Paradigm Gallery + Studio in Philadelphia and she has exhibited her work extensively in group shows throughout the United States. In 2012, Rinaldi completed The City of Philadelphia's Mural Arts Program's Training Program and she then apprenticed under muralist Cesar Viveros. She has since worked on a number of public and private murals in the city. In addition to her active studio practice, Lauren is a mother and is involved in local political organizing and volunteering.

About Charles Clary
Charles Clary was born in 1980 in Morristown, Tennessee. He received his BFA in painting with honors from Middle Tennessee State University and his MFA in painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design.

He has shown in exhibitions at Galerie Evolution-Pierre Cardin in Paris, France, The Netherlands’ CODA Museum Paper Biennial in 2021, Art of Paper Fair in New York City, and many other international, national, and regional juried, group, solo, and museum exhibitions. Charles has exhibited regionally, nationally, and internationally in numerous solo and group shows, is represented by Paradigm Gallery + Studio in Philadelphia, R02 Gallery in Dallas, Texas, and Patrajdas Contemporary Gallery in Ogden, Utah. Clary currently lives and works in Conway, South Carolina, where he is an Associate Professor of Studio Art and Foundations Coordinator at Coastal Carolina University.
Clary has been featured in numerous print and Internet interviews including, Create! Magazine, PICKCHUR Magazine, Candyfloss Magazine, This is Colossal, WIRED magazine (US and UK), Hi-Fructose, Beautiful Decay, Bluecanvas Magazine, and This Is Colossal. He has also been featured in publications including 500 Paper Objects, Paper Works, Paper Art, Papercraft 2, PUSH: Paper, and The New Twenties. Clary won Top Prize at the 2016 ArtFields Competition in Lake City, SC, and in 2019 he won both People’s Choice Award for 2D and the Merit Prize at ArtFields.

About Jedediah Morfit
Jedediah Morfit received his MFA in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2005, where he was awarded the Sylvia Leslie Herman Young Scholarship and the Award Of Excellence. He was a Fellow at the Center For Emerging Visual Artists from 2007-2009, and received a New Jersey Council On the Arts Fellowship for sculpture in 2009. He received the Louise Kahn Award for Sculpture from the Woodmere Art Museum in 2006, and was awarded the Dexter Jones Award for Bas Relief from the National Sculpture Society in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, he was commissioned to create a series of new work for Artlantic:Wonder, which was named one of the 50 best public art projects in the Public Art Network’s Year in Review. His work has been shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions, and featured in The New York Times, Sculpture Review, Artnews and American Craft Magazine, as well as on NJTV’s State Of the Arts. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and three (count ‘em, three) children.

About Paradigm Gallery
Paradigm Gallery + Studio® was established in 2010 by co-founders and curators, Jason Chen and Sara McCorriston. The gallery exhibits meaningful, process-intense contemporary artwork by emerging and mid-career artists from around the world. In 2022, Paradigm announced the opening of its new 5-story, 7,000 sq. ft. home, The Paradigm Arts Building, in Old City, Philadelphia. Now open to the public, the building boasts multiple floors of exhibition space, integrated in-house design and printmaking, a dedicated events floor, and art advisory offices. With this, Chen and McCorriston expanded their vision for the greater Philadelphia arts community. The gallery is at the heart of this vision, anchoring Paradigm’s overall mission of increasing access to the commercial art world, supporting artists and advancing their careers, and collaborating with like-minded partners to build a more equitable, sustainable arts economy for all.

*View/purchase artwork here*