Serban Ionescu and Anjuli Rathod Exhibition
Safe Gallery
This event has ended.
With his drawings in space, Serban Ionescu blurs the boundary between design and sculpture into a line one can inhabit. Ionescu’s work stems primarily from the automatic act of drawing. These instinct based gestures leave the artist with piles of drawings to sift through and further decipher into collages. Cartoonish limbs are pasted together to create a greater anthropomorphic form, flattening on the XYZ axis to take on the function of a chair. The finished figure is translated into three dimensional space via several methods such as CNC waterjet cut steel, powder coating, and upholstery. Every aspect of Ionescu’s drawings are captured into the sculptural work, from the loose edge mark-making to the vibrant pops of color. Limbs are emphasized as shaky, creeping, and slanted entities that ground these constructs into being. Building upon the concept that a chair is a character; Ionescu’s tableau of bright seating, tables and shelves become a rowdy family of creatures who animate the space of the gallery. Ionescu’s spirited troupe poetically collapse air into earth, and gesture into chair.
Anjuli Rathod’s recent body of painting explores the cyclical, often ambiguous relationship between fluid and solid matter, dream and reality, life and death. These works are the initial outcome of automatic drawing, allowing Rathod to link directly to her unconscious through memory and self-examination. The dreamscapes which unfold across her canvases depict figures melding with fluid environments; swimming limbs and resting heads that convey myriad psychological states. Thinly-painted fields of soft cerulean blue, red, and gold interlock as backdrop to Rathod’s personal symbols. Recurring imagery such as moon faces with keyhole eyes, candlelight, car interiors, writhing snakes, and long brown legs inhabit the darkened settings. The prevalence of black space and candle flame invite the viewer into an intimate, nighttime ambience. Here the artist sets the tone for distressed countenances and restless legs to make their appearance. These conflicted bodies offer a glimpse into the tension surrounding diasporic identity. Rathod’s ritual of creating and navigating her own narrative realms alchemically transforms these moments of solitude into both sensual and haunted evocations. Each painting becomes part of a series of clues that unravel a hallucinogenic mystery… One outstretched limb at a time.
Media
Schedule
from June 07, 2018 to July 15, 2018