Michelle Segre “Symptoms of Escape Velocity”
Derek Eller Gallery
This event has ended.
Derek Eller Gallery presents an exhibition of recent drawings and sculpture by Michelle Segre.
In her sculptures composed of plaster, wire, mesh, found detritus, and various organic matter, Segre continues to develop her heterogeneous vision, informed as much by mega-ancient Neolithic idols as by Joan Miro and science fiction. In Self-Reflexive Narcissistic Supernova (2013), the disorienting amalgam of possibilities reaches an ecstatic intensity. The head of a mushroom, meticulously composed in wax and measuring five feet in diameter, emanates a vibrant dream-catcher-like form. Segre has painted the on-edge mushroom top with impasto markings reminiscent of prehistoric caves and pagan hieroglyphs. The effect is fantastical and bizarre, an invitation to negotiate an alternate reality and a sculptural set of unknowns. The craft-work motifs rendered in vibrant colors of yarn (blackberry purple, candy apple red, mustard yellow), shards of reflective materials, and a web of suggestive and enigmatic objects evoke detailed cellular patterns and astral visions. The sculpture brims with potential energy and a sense of kinetic action, as if the mushroom were projecting itself as mycological information into real space.
An installation of drawings and xeroxed sketchbook pages give insight into the germination and evolution of these structures and some of the visual touchstones that engender them. Drawing is essential to her work and is the laboratory of her imagination. Through practiced automation and a deft hand, the pencil or ballpoint pen opens possibilities that Segre then actualizes in three-dimensional form.
Michelle Segre lives and works in New York City. She received a BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art, NY, and studied abroad with the Tyler School of Art, Rome, Italy. Segre is a past recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award (2011). Recent solo exhibitions include Cress Gallery, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, TN (2014) and Antecedents of the Astral Hamster, at University Art Museum, University at Albany, SUNY (2013). Her work is included in private and public collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, New York. This will be her fifth solo exhibition with the gallery.
Media
Schedule
from February 15, 2014 to March 15, 2014
Opening Reception on 2014-02-15 from 18:00 to 20:00