Melissa Murray and Julia Westerbeke “Echoes”
A.I.R. Gallery
This event has ended.
A.I.R. Gallery announces Echoes , an exhibition of paper-based works by Melissa Murray and Julia Westerbeke. On view will be paintings and drawings by Murray, alongside drawing-based installations and textural works made from repeated punctures on paper by Westerbeke.
Though visually distinct, these works share an interest in entropy, pattern, myth and ritual, as well as a collagist tendency to combine and accumulate images from varied sources. Both artists create works that reveal more upon closer inspection, as nuances and details gradually surface within complex networks of imagery. Subtle references to entropy and transformation can be found throughout: compositions that unravel at the seams, implied narratives that shift and dissolve, loose gestures and forms of mark-making that act as a counterpoint to intricate and layered detail.
Murray’s current series, For the End of TIme is a body of work based on a piece of writing from WWII. A letter, written by her Great Uncle during the week he was killed, is a hyper realized observation of a day spent in the life of war. Pulling from the visual narrative of the piece, Murray created works that relate to each sentence consecutively.
In her latest body of work, Westerbeke experiments with mirrored imagery, inserting moments of imperfection into detailed, Rorschach-inspired compositions. In her puncture series, hundreds of minute pinpricks and holes in paper form raised, brail-like surfaces, creating semi-abstract images that conflate the bodily with the alien, the totemic with the fragile, and the primordial with sci-fi and fantasy aesthetics. In a similar vein, Westerbeke will present a series of cut-out, sculptural drawings on the walls and floor of the gallery that play with mirroring, reflections and doubling.
Media
Schedule
from September 10, 2015 to October 11, 2015
Opening Reception on 2015-09-10 from 18:00 to 20:00