NYAB Event - Caroline Cox “Porous”

Caroline Cox “Porous”

Studio 10

This event has ended.

The exhibition presents the viewer with an unbounded installation of sculptures extruding from the walls, laid on the floor and suspended from the ceiling. Cox selects materials that are of particular optical and tensile interest including mesh, monofilament, glass spheres, lenses and pipettes.

Strand (hanging), 2013 spans the gallery in an inverted arc. In this work, Cox grafted the segments of black nylon packing material into contiguous relationships using long treads of transparent monofilament. The spaces between the fretwork grids imply a shifting density. The sculpture appears to fade at its lacey edges and the warren of tunnels within, which circle back and around, seem to simultaneously reveal and deny a full observation. Twirl, 2014 sits directly on the wooden floor of the gallery. The small tower is comprised of slim, glass tubes attached to a central spine and tipped with plastic hair-curling pins. The quills radiate in a spiral splayed out like the quills of a sea anemone. On the walls of the gallery are clustered, mesh sculptures in sinuous forms that hold to the surface like barnacles to a ship. Each piece is folded, pinched, and flared in baroquely wrought gestures. Cast on the floor nearby lays a tangle of blue titled Catenoidal Cluster, 2013. The formless heap of electric blue monofilament and vegetable packaging mesh becomes reminiscent of an aqueous creature or a microbial mass.

Cox transcends any utilitarian associations of the materials she utilizes. In part she maximizes impact and intensity by virtue of an abundance. Working on the floor, surrounded by piles, the artist reconfigures partial objects to create dramatic architectural forms, liberating materials from the use and pragmatism associated with a former function like the packing of fruit. In her process, Cox is also informed by the gravity’s pull on the objects in space, and the play of light through the materials. Light becomes an important means of shaping and instigating associations.

Caroline Cox lives and works in Ridgewood Queens. Cox’s work has been included in numerous exhibitions, since 2005 her solo shows have included: Swerve at Another Year in LA, Los Angeles, CA; Spin, FiveMyles Gallery, Bklyn; Plasmodial Void, Big & Small/Casual Gallery, LIC; Just Add Water, Long Island University, Bklyn campus; Tangle-Optical and ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss The Sky, 2 shows at Sarah Bowen Gallery, Bklyn. Cox has created project installations at the Clocktower Gallery, NYC in 2012, and at Don Soker Contemporary Art Gallery, San Francisco, CA in 2010. Caroline has show in group exhibitions at: Pierogi Gallery in Bklyn; Smack Mellon Gallery in Bklyn; Sculpture Center in NYC; Yale University School of Art, Newhaven, CT; Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC. Cox has received grants from the Tree of Life Foundation and the Pollock Krasner foundation. She has participated in residencies at The Clocktower Gallery, NYC, the Edward Albee Foundation, Montauk, NY, and Het Apollohuis in Eindhovern, Netherlands. Her work in the Red Square show at Smack Mellon gallery is reproduced in Alternative Histories, New York Art Spaces, 1960-2010 published by MIT press. Caroline was a performer in The Chairs, an experimental noise band. Cox also founded and co-directed Flipside, a Williamsburg gallery, with Tim Spelios from 1997-2001.