Trish Tillman “Stage Diver”
Asya Geisberg Gallery
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Asya Geisberg Gallery presents “Stage Diver”, the gallery’s second solo exhibition of sculpture by Trish Tillman. In a combination of hand-wrought and manufactured metal and hand-sewn and upholstered geometric shapes, Tillman distills references to gaudy places of entertainment, faux-luxury, furniture, plumbing, and flashy fashion. Her sculptures carry an omnipresent echo of the body - as zippers, pipes, animal hair and leathers are metonyms for flesh, appendages, orifices, and skin. Unapologetically sexy, her uncanny minimal works evoke the frisson of fetish. The often-modular wall sculptures amplify references as momentum builds across gestures big and small. Throughout the exhibition, nothing is given away or explicit. Warm “feminine” textiles, cheap girlish accessories, and cool, sleek metals juxtapose, as the artists connects disparate elements such as car exhaust pipes with upholstered shapes that suggest clutch purses, bar stools, or body fragments. Each sculpture is adorned, if only in a small but key measure, by clasps, chains, studs, or colorful piping. Some elements straddle competing realms - a piece of metal could be a drawer pull, plumbing, or a purse handle. The metal often aggressively attaches to the plush covered parts, adding yet another underhanded metaphor.
Tillman’s elegant, concise and pristine sculptures paradoxically manage to hint at the cheap and lurid, smoky club interiors or the flashy sexuality of the strip bar. The fantasy of luxury and the reality of the day-to-day, facades and simulated surfaces, the performative space of restaurants, amusement sparks and holiday hotels all situate the varied works in the exhibition. Odd additions of stark color via a hint of Hawaiian print fabric, a fake fruit, or a tourist shop sunset’s glaring palette, can upset the contained shapes and confident grand gestures. The artists’ sly echo of Minimalist sculptures mixes with Pop material and a postmodern interplay of binaries create a Freudian interplay of references and narratives. Tillman’s enigmatic works ask us to reassess familiar materials and work hard to create a precision and balance, only to upend our typical associations with comfort, tastefulness, luxury, or fantasy.
Trish Tillman was born in Chicago and lives and works in New York. She received an MFA from School of Visual Arts and a BFA from James Madison University. Tillman has had group exhibitions at Fireside Projects, NY, Present Company, NY; Cindy Rucker Gallery, NY; Regina Rex, NY; Emerson Dorsch, FL; and Elephant Art Space, CA, among others. Solo exhibitions include Civilian Art Projects, Washington, DC, and the Arlington Arts Center, VA. She is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation 2009 MFA Grant, and a 2015 Fountainhead Residency in Miami, FL. She has an upcoming solo exhibition at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, VA, and is included in upcoming group exhibitions at Washington Project for the Arts and Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Philadelphia.
Media
Schedule
from April 06, 2017 to May 13, 2017
Opening Reception on 2017-04-06 from 18:00 to 20:00