NYAB Event - Summer Wheat “Walk-In Pantry”

Summer Wheat “Walk-In Pantry”

Fridman Gallery

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Fridman Gallery presents Walk-In Pantry, a solo exhibition of new work by Summer Wheat.

Wheat’s paintings and sculptural forms are characterized by expressive structure and color that challenge the limits of material and process. She centers her subject matter upon the figure and narrative, both imagined and recollected, to explore vulnerability and contradiction in life and story with tender humor and generous curiosity.

In this new body of work, Wheat imagines the world of the Milkmaid, the central character of Vermeer’s eponymous masterpiece, as an immersive installation of 15 paintings and 9 “paint-rugs”. The gallery is transformed into the milkmaid’s walk-in pantry, the first in a series of rooms comprising her environment, which will be presented as a complete set at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art in 2016 – Wheat’s first solo museum exhibition.

To quote the artist: My paintings have always been, in a sense, looking to grasp the form of paint as a three-dimensional object, but now the materiality of the work is relating to historical frameworks. Instead of seeing a painting as merely a picture, l look inside the space and seek to find things within the work. What is under the table of Vermeer’s milkmaid? What’s inside her pocket? To speak of what is real and unreal, thinking of what can be touched and untouched. What resides inside a picture all of a sudden becomes the picture.

Summer Wheat (b. 1977, Oklahoma City, OK) received her MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design and BA from University of Central Oklahoma. Her work was included in recent museum exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2013-14), deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park (2013) and the Torrance Art Museum (2013).

Summer Wheat lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.