NEW YORK.- The Canal Chapter concludes its first annual Artist Residency Project of 2007 with a Closing-Opening Exhibition. The September 6th, Closing-Opening reception will begin at 6pm, The Canal Chapter 343 Canal St. 4th Floor. The reception includes a dance performance with two viewings at 7pm and 9pm.

The exhibit continues September 7th through September 15th, 2007 during gallery hours from Tues.- Sat. 12-6pm. The dance performance will also take place the following night on Friday, September 7th at 8pm. All events are free and open to the public.

Due to the nature of this project, photo and video documentation occur during exhibit receptions for the use of live-internet streaming and the final exhibition catalogue. All entries onto the premises of The Canal Chapter give consent to be documented.

About the Artist Residency Project: Using the SoHo/Tribeca neighborhoods as a backdrop The Canal Chapter 2007 Artist Residency Project initiates the first in an annual series of all-inclusive residencies, presenting the living artists for real-time interaction with the public. From August 3rd until September 7th, 2007, the 8 emerging international and domestic artists chosen to participate in the Artist Residency Project are fully accessible to the public in their workspaces and living quarters.

Each artist lives at The Canal Chapter, a 2000 sq.ft loft located at 343 Canal Street, 4th Floor. They work a few blocks away at the Franklin Collective in a 2000 sq. ft loft located at 72 Franklin Street, 2nd & 3rd Floors. Both locations are open to the public 24/7. Periodic video chapters with updates of events taking place during the residency are available for viewing at the gallery’s website at http://canalchapternyc.com. In addition, the website is hosting live-internet streaming of the exhibition receptions. Throughout the duration of the project, each artist takes part in weekly open panel discussions, visiting artists presentations, critical conversations, communal living, and frequent parties. The first installment of the residency project, cultivates constituent parts of the art production process into a month-long living display. Presented works produced throughout the residency conclude the final exhibition.

Description of Works: Hilla Ben Ari’s work rediscovers the corporeal and emotional relationships that living spaces generate. By mapping bodies and objects onto the blueprints of her apartment in Israel and of The Canal Chapter, Ben Ari juxtaposes the boundaries that dictate the control of the two vessels most significant in day-to-day living; the body and the buildings in which we conduct our lives.

Raina Benoit Corroding rusty pipes of a New York loft, through thick, clogged arteries, into the crowded ocean floor of seized ships and up amongst the swirling trash bags - Raina Benoit, originally from Louisiana, works with themes that revolve around the human condition and our impact on the environment. Using found and manipulated objects from New York's streets, Benoit is working with opposing relationships between local/global, house/body, individual/collective and ocean/land.

Rachel and Collin Bunting’s, “Let’s kill our sadness” is an electric dance performance, which embraces the concept of anger as the source for momentum.† Echoed within the costumes are metaphorical targets and paths aimed at obvious yet elusive destinations.† Raw wool clouds loom overhead, like strange, monstrous dream-catchers while the performers embody states of rigid stillness, vertigo and chaos.

Soo Whan Choi’s interests reveal images represented by thousands of holes, illuminated by artificial light. The light fills the void of each hole, balancing the opposing conditions on an equal level of materiality, making it possible for the viewer to read the image and simultaneously look at the emptiness. This body of work deals with the phenomenon of human recognition, its ability to transform reality, and comprehend the multiplicity of truth.

Aaron Hughes - Through investigating the everyday spaces of New York City, Aaron Hughes discovers links between the common geometries used in public plazas within the city and the history of Islamic geometric designs.† In a hope to highlight the connections implied by these parallels Aaron Hughes creates simple momentary public drawings for peace (DrawingforPeace.org), in order to construct a metaphor between the daily indifference to these histories and the routine disregard to the destruction of the people and lands of Iraq.

Kymia Nawabi’s artworks narrate and remind viewers of the body’s space within abjection. Opening sensory organs that desire to remain closed, multiplying organs and limbs that should exist as one, while others spew synthetic fluids. Kymia leads viewers through an illustrative example resulting in an honest portrait of the abject. Kymia renders her line and colors with a feminine and delicate hand; however, the subject matter lies within the counter dialect with a grotesque subject matter.

Katie E. St. Clair has twisted the well-known fairytale, Rapunzel into a modern day dialogue of bizarre adult images - a damsel in distress becoming her own heroine. She explores a myriad of print-imagery, botanical drawings, and her own photographs to merge a patchwork of whimsical and otherworldly space in her paintings.