The phrase ‘beaver fever’ doesn’t lack for associations in excess of its primary meaning (as a common name for giardia), especially when questions of gender and feminism are at play. The phrase’s convulsive suggestibility fits these three painters—Angela Dufresne, Pia Dehne, and Elizabeth Bonaventura—who are showing together for the first time. Their work shares a punning play on the natural world, in which realism quickly turns unreal. Dufresne borrows from history painting, the Hudson River School, and mythology, to present a world replete with the pleasures of the flesh (and fish: Dufresne is a keen fly fisher). Dehne veers from figuration to abstraction and back again, creating a haunting sense of what lies behind her paintings and asking the viewer to reckon with our tendency to wrest abstract visuals into images as a way of making sense of the world. Bonaventura can use a single line or color—the simplest of forms—to evoke feelings of alienation in nature, while her uncanny twinned portraits mine a fascination with doubles and doubling. ‘Beaver Fever’ was curated by writer and critic Jennifer Kabat and is titled for a fictitious fanzine—celebrating beavers, their lodges and upstate life—she has long hoped to publish.

Above: ‘Catch Directions and Toys,’ Angela Dufresne 2015


‘Mr. Cash’ (2012) and ‘Stalker’ (2017), Pia Dehne

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Angela Dufresne has been the subject of twenty-three solo exhibitions, including at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, CA, and Macalester College in Minneapolis, MN, and has shown in group exhibitions at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in NY, The National Academy of Arts and Letters in NY, the RISD Museum in Providence, RI, the Kemper Museum in Kansas City, Brooklyn Academy of Music in NY, The University of Richmond Museum in Richman, VA, The Aldridge Museum in CT, Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, NY, the Rose Museum in Waltham, MA, Mills College in Oakland, CA, Minneapolis School of Art and Design, and elsewhere. She has received grants from the National Academy of Arts and Letters in NY, and the Jerome Foundation in Minneapolis, and the Guggenheim Foundation. An Assistant Professor in the Painting Department at the Rhode Island School of Design, Dufresne also organizes exhibitions across the country and writes about art for Art 21 and Hyperallergic. She lives and works in Halcottsville and Brooklyn.

Pia Dehne received her MFA from the from the Düsseldorf Art Academy in 1994 while studying under Professor Markus Lüpertz. Dehne’s work has been subject of several solo exhibitions including her first solo show in New York, Naked City in 2004 at Deitch Projects and her most recent solo show in Project Blue Book at AJL Gallery in Berlin 2013. She currently lives and works in the Catskills.

Elizabeth Bonaventura has shown work at Kinkead Contemporary Gallery in Los Angeles , SLC Contemporary Gallery in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the Educational Alliance in downtown New York, and Schroeder Romero & Shredder Gallery in Chelsea, and Green Gallery in Brooklyn, New York. Bonaventura was a recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Award in Painting in 2012. She lives and works in Halcottsville and Brooklyn.

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‘BEAVER FEVER’

Paintings by Angela Dufresne, Pia Dehne, Elizabeth Bonaventura

September 3–October 1, 2017
Opening Reception:
Sunday, September 3, 5-7pm
with wine from our partner Dandelion Wine

Open for viewing during Open Hours and events (see the Calendar for event listings), and by appointment.
Contact: info@bushelcollective.org