Collapsed Narratives
Chris Hood, Laura Karetzky and Kelsey Shwetz
March 14 - April 27, 2024
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 14, 6-8pm
Address: 242 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011

Dinner Gallery is proud to present Collapsed Narratives, a group exhibition featuring artists, Chris Hood, Laura Karetzky and Kelsey Shwetz, who use representational imagery through the lens of abstraction in order to break away from passive perspectives. 

Within storytelling, a ‘collapsed narrative’ is a method that does not follow a straight chronological structure. Instead, it is non-linear and fragmented, often starting in the middle of the story and jumping around in time or even combining several various narratives together. This approach can reflect alternate realities and open up opportunities for new perspectives that traditional narratives cannot. The concept of collapsed narratives can also draw on the failing of dominant narratives and their instability, giving way to a palpable reality and revealing uncomfortable truths. 

The artists in this exhibition have created new ways of examining, absorbing, and  contextualizing  engagement with imagery. Removing them from their expected environments, they shift significance and focus to provide a more captivating and thought-provoking experience. As multiple narratives and meanings collide on a singular pictorial plane, a third potential experience appears, allowing reality to be questioned, explored and developed.

Shifting between traditional landscapes, interior spaces, and surrealism, Kelsey Shwetz aims to create a world where punishment, desire and ecological anxieties unfold. Guided by a written Fable, her practice oscillates between text and imagery, real and imagined and past and future. Chris Hood physically challenges the notion of a singular surface by activating the use of both the front and back of his canvases. Deeply rooted in art historical understanding, Hood’s characters weave in and out painterly abstraction, investigating the space between new media, object-making and materiality. Taking moments from her daily life, Laura Karetzky’s paintings are an amalgamation of several stories into one composition. Her works layer various experiences that question how we interact with one another, the ideas of a presumed singular reality and possibility of multiple truths. 

About Chris Hood
Chris Hood (b. 1984, Atlanta, GA) has held solo exhibitions at Lyles & King, New York, US, Eduardo Secci, Florence, IT; Praz-Delavallade, Los Angeles, US; 68projects, Berlin, DE; Mier Gallery Los Angeles, US and Galerie Bernard Ceysson, Geneva, CH. Hood’s work has been included in group exhibitions at VENUS Los Angeles; The Museum of Museums, Seattle, US; Torrance Art Museum, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Atlanta, US; Saatchi Gallery, London, UK; and CANADA, New York, US. His work has been covered in Art in America, Hyperallergic, Galerie Magazine, ELEPHANT, Whitehot, Mousse Magazine, The Art Newspaper, and TimeOut New York among others. In 2023 his work was selected for the Art in the Embassies program for the American Embassy in Budapest, Hungary. He received an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2010. Hood lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

About Laura Karetzky
Laura Karetzky is a Brooklyn-based visual artist who earned an MFA from The New York Academy of Art and BFA from Carnegie-Mellon University. Recent solo exhibitions include Luis De Jesus Los Angeles (CA); BRIC|Arts Media House (Brooklyn, NY); and Elizabeth Houston Gallery (New York, NY). Her work has been featured in notable publications including the Los Angeles Times, MUSÉE Magazine, ArtNowLA, Hyperallergic, American Arts Quarterly, The Washington Post and The New York Times. Karetzky has also received awards and residencies from The Corporation of Yaddo (2024, 2014, 2011); The Pittsburgh Foundation, Bennett Prize (2023); The Smithsonian Museums, Outwin Boochever Competition (2022, 2006); TwoTrees, Cultural Space Subsidy Award (2022, 2017); New York Studio School, artcritial Prize (2021); New York Studio School, Mercedes Matter Award (2020); and the Kaminsky Family Foundation Residency, Mana Contemporary (2017).

About Kelsey Shwetz
Kelsey Shwetz is a Canadian born painter who currently lives and works in New York. Shwetz received her MFA from Columbia University in 2022 where she also teaches Painting as an Assistant Adjunct Professor. She is a three-time recipient of the The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, along with grants from Canada Council for the Arts and the Mayer Foundation. She was awarded fellowships by the Vermont Studio Center, The Choy Family, and Ellen Gelmen. Previous solo exhibitions of her work have appeared at Cadet Capela (Paris), Coulisse (Stockholm), and most recently Half Gallery (LA).