NYAB Event - “Physical Property” Exhibition

“Physical Property” Exhibition

Brian Morris Gallery

This event has ended.

These seven works combine a variety of familiar materials to produce unexpected results. By repurposing their respective mediums, each artist demonstrates the transformation of known matter into something else altogether. The resulting works possess a unique physical presence, asking us to think twice about their existence and offering us a measured comparison of what we think we know vs. what we’re really looking at.
Gerald Jackson and Leslie Wayne employ materials found in the traditional painter’s studio – canvas, paint, wooden stretchers – but use them in a non-traditional way to make something distinctly un-painting- like. In Gerald Jackson’s Untitled, painted strips of felt writhe on a Masonite support and are intersected diagonally by pieces of wood – one of them a ruler. Like many of Jackson’s works, Untitled defines itself by repurposing objects found in the studio and our inherent associations with them. Leslie Wayne riffs on our expectations of how to use paint. Ropelike pieces seem squeezed from oversized tubes and are stacked vertically. Color Bar II gives us a lesson in color juxtaposition, but the paint also serves as a scaffold, structuring the space it occupies. Marthe Keller and Craig Fisher bring a less confrontational approach and their results are characterized by a more indirect process. Marthe Keller’s Schwitters Schmitters I exudes an offhandedness in its execution. We sense that Keller has inadvertently stumbled across her form as defined by her choice of material. She even pokes a bit of fun at fellow detritus- collagist Kurt Schwitters via her title. In Russian Linen Painting (2 of 5), Craig Fisher reverses the convention of painting directly onto a canvas by applying pigment to the back side, then squeegeeing it through to the front, producing a surprisingly elegant stain. Fisher further upends our understanding of positive and negative by gluing a black dot of acrylic paint centrally onto the surface. Jim Lee’s and Stephen Maine’s works use industrial materials to engage the space of both wall and floor, but with quite different results. Lee’s Pride and Shame, a leaning and seemingly abandoned sack of poly fill at first seems like any other we might see sitting in a warehouse corner. However, subsequent viewings prove it more ambiguous: the object appears to simultaneously assert and withdraw itself from the room, referencing both pragmatic and ethereal realities. In MP13-0803, Maine layers sheets of mundane matter - plastic mesh, fake rattan, painted cotton fabric and a blue shower curtain - to produce light and density. Looking through these veils of color creates a shimmering effect we might normally associate with Impressionism and creates new chromatic fusions, as with Synthetic Cubism’s overlapping planes. Bonnie Rychlak’s Catchall takes a piece of domestic furniture as its starting point. Originally designed to hold newspapers and small household items, Rychlak fills the catchall’s concavity with cast wax and, with the surreal addition of a faucet and drain stop, confounds all expectation of its usefulness.

Kim Uchiyama August 2013