You Make My Heart Sing

Sanie Bokhari, Simon Deschamps, Matthew Fischer, Echo Goff, Christopher Manning, Collin Moore, Ken Tisa

Curated by Kathy Goodell

July 17 - August 19

Press Release

“You Must Have Chaos Within You To Give Birth To A Dancing Star” - Friedrich Nietzsche

The artists in “You Make My Heart Sing,” Sanie Bokhari, Simon Deschamps, Matthew Fischer, Echo Goff, Christopher Manning, Collin Moore, and Ken Tisa, are reaching for an elixir, for ecstasy, a way to escape supposed reality or the burden of the mundane. Reality is no longer impressive, instead they summon love as a partner, as a guide to living.

Sanie Bokhari completed a Bachelor’s in Painting from the National College of Arts, Lahore, in 2014, and an MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2018. She was the recipient of the President’s Scholarship at RISD, and was also selected to work with the Contemporary art curator at the RISD Museum. Bokhari has served as a lecturer at the National College of Arts in Lahore from 2014-2016. She has exhibited her work in numerous group shows in Pakistan and the US, including Canvas Gallery in Karachi and Asya Geisberg in NYC. Her residencies include Luton Culture in 2012, Vermont Studio Centre in 2015, NARS Foundation in New York in 2018, PLOP residency in London 2019 and Vasl Residency in 2020.

Simon Deschamps (b. 1997) is a multi-disciplinary artist from upstate New York who graduated with a BFA from Cooper Union in 2021. He works in video, sculpture, music, drawing, and painting. Lately he’s been building cairns and a video synthesizer.

Matthew Fischer lives and works in New York City. He earned an MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from the University of Wisconsin River Falls. He has shown his work in solo and group exhibitions, including at Jack Tilton Gallery, Junior Projects, Louis B James, Jack Hanley, 247365, Fierman Gallery and The Flag Art Foundation in NYC.

He has also exhibited at The Lighthouse Works on Fishers Island, NY, Anderson Ranch Art Center in Snowmass Village, CO and at Left Field Gallery, Los Osos, CA. In 2018 he was a fellow with Shandaken Project’s Paint School. He has been an artist in residence at the Lighthouse Works and twice at The Edward F. Albee Foundation in Montauk, NY. He currently teaches painting and drawing at Ethical Culture Fieldston School in the Bronx.

Echo Goff is an artist and musician who lives in Kingston, New York. Her artwork examines visual, and societal hierarchies established by fragmenting historical imagery. Juxtaposing sentimental photos, campy objects, Riot Grrrl symbolism, and motifs from antiquity. Making a space within her work for dialogue about classism, feminism, and subcultures. She has an AS majoring in Fine Arts from Hudson Valley Community College, and a BFA in Painting and Drawing. She’s shown her work both in solo, and group exhibitions, including at The Samuel Dorsky Museum, The Arts Center of the Capital Region, and the D& H Historical landmark. She is a board member of the non-profit WomansWork Art Gallery, a member of the Big Love Recording Collective, and an active member of the grassroots organization Project Try in Albany, NY.

Christopher E. Manning (b. 1983, New York) has a MFA from SUNY New Paltz and a BFA from Manhattanville College. His work has been exhibited at Villa Streccius. Landau, Germany; Parlour Bushwick, BK; Garrison Art Center, NY;Ely Center for Contemporary Art, New Haven; Exit Art, NY; Dorsky Curatorial Projects, LIC, NY; ex ovo. Dallas, TX; The Impossible Project Lab, Berlin, Germany; Catskill Art Society, Livingston Manor, NY; Lift Trucks Projects, NY; Hillyer Art Space, DC; Samuel Dorsky Museum, NY; Theo Ganz Studio, Beacon, NY; Ann Street Gallery, Newburgh, NY; Manhattanville College; Iona College; Redux Contemporary Art Center. Charleston, SC; The Susan D. Goodman Collection, among others. His work has been featured in The New York Times; The Queens Chronicle; Ain’t Bad Magazine; The Impossible Project; Scandale Project; Kolaj Magazine and Vellum Magazine. He published the first monograph of his Polaroid works titled “Everything, As Perfect As It Seems” with AINT-BAD in 2020.

Manning is the Head of Exhibitions at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, as well as a Professor of Visual Art at Manhattanville College. He has also taught at the College of New Rochelle, and has been a visiting critic at the Wassaic Project and SUNY New Paltz MFA and BFA programs. The artist lives and works in North Salem, NY.

Collin Moore (Catskill, New York) has been developing a language through painting, drawing, and collaging different images/objects/surfaces together. Interested in internet culture, he explores the result of the virtual and physical world colliding together, critiquing and navigating through the schism within society. He received his B.F.A. in painting at SUNY New Paltz and has both installed and shown in many group exhibitions and pop up shows within the upper Hudson Valley including Albany, Troy, and Ghent over the later half of the 2010s.

Ken Tisa (b. 1945, Philadelphia, PA) received his BFA from Pratt Institute in 1968 and his MFA from Yale School of Art and Architecture in 1971. He currently lives and works in New York, NY and is a professor in the painting department at Maryland Institute College of Art. Tisa has held numerous solo exhibitions at venues including Kate Werble Gallery (2017, 2013); Gordon Robichaux (2017); Centre D’Art et de Culture, Aix-en-Provence, France (2007,2004); Pinkard Gallery, MICA (2006); Sara Penn Gallery (1999); Stellweg Seguy Gallery (1988); Alexander Wood Gallery (1986); Genesis Gallery (1983); Art Latitude Gallery (1981); and Fischbach Gallery (1972).

Over the past four decades, his work has been featured in exhibitions at institutions such as the La Salle University Art Museum; the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College; Terrault Contemporary; The Philbrook Museum of Art; MOMA PS1; Artist’s Space; Art in General; Gray Gallery; and PS122 Gallery. He was featured in the 1975 Whitney Biennial, at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Tisa’ works have been reviewed in publications such as The New York Times, New York Magazine, Miami New Times, and ArtInfo.