Ceres Gallery
547 W 27, 2nd fl
NY, NY 10001
www.ceresgallery.org
Hours: Tues-Sat 12-6

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Marjorie Vecchio, Curator, email: abtok@aol.com
or Olive H. Kelsey, Gallery Administrator, email: art@ceresgallery.org; Tel 212-947-6100

A BAKER'S DOZEN
Exhibition Dates: March 29 - April 23, 2005
Opening: Saturday, April 2, 4:00-6:00 pm

A Baker's Dozen, curated by Marjorie Vecchio, includes New York artists Elizabeth Castagna, Leslie Cornell, Andrea Ellison, Fawn Krieger, Keiko Narahashi, Nicole Parcher, Karen Revis, Donna Ruff, Karen Schifano, Mary Tyson, Marie Ucci, Fotini Vurgaropulou and Alicia Wargo.

In 1997 Marie Ucci, an artist recently finished with graduate school, was invited by a former Vermont Studio Center studio mate to join three artist friends to look at each other's work in a Manhattan apartment. Little did she know that this moment would turn into a long-living artist critique group, which still meets every month for serious critique and connection. Though the membership has evolved, numerous members have been with the group over four years, a few have been there almost from the beginning, while some are quite new. Diverse in age, culture and experience level, Women's Art Group (WAG) includes artists of varying perspectives. During a time when who you know sometimes seems more important than what you know, WAG has defied typical artist groups both in scope and time: their main focus has been and continues to be the consistent development of the artist-lead critical process. Trekking to Greenpoint, the Lower East Side, Brooklyn and Chelsea, WAG members attentively meet in a rotating member's studio, where they typically take notes or make sound recordings of the two-plus-hour critiques.

Part of their growth as a critical group includes exhibiting together, something they have never done. Independent curator, Marjorie Vecchio, was invited to the challenge: organize a group of seemingly unrelated art works together for a group show of thirteen artists who know each other's work intimately. This exhibition will highlight relationships and differences between the artists' work, as well as present a platform for dialogue about the continued relevance of consistent and reoccurring self-evaluation that comes from artist-run critique organizations.