Pattern Pulp

Tuesday's Gallery Picks




gallerypicks_patternpulp84

The shows in this week’s gallery picks explore transitions: in their work, in their selves and in the world around them.

*            *            *

1. “Chris Ofili: Night and Day” spans the artist’s influential career, encompassing his paintings, drawings, and sculptures. The artist’s diverse oeuvre has taken imagery and inspiration from such disparate, history-spanning sources as the Bible, hip-hop music, Zimbabwean cave paintings, Blaxploitation films, and the works of William Blake. at New Museum
2. Inspired by the notion that “every place is unfathomable, infinite, [and] impossible to describe, because a place…[is] constantly arising and decaying,” Alluvial Constructs provides a visual exploration of the intrinsic, unavoidable and poetic processes of construction and degradation at Octavia Art Gallery
3. The Bruce High Quality Foundation re-imagined the much-fabled Arnold Böcklin painting Isle of the Dead as a stark reality when two members, one clad in a makeshift shroud and the other at the helm of a dinghy, sailed toward a garbage dump with the skyline of New York City rising in the distance. Here, they exhibit silkscreen versions of Böcklin’s first version of Isle of the Dead paired with silkscreen versions of their encomiastic image at McClain Gallery
4. Somewear is a series of self-portraits, which struggles with the idea of identity. Is it possible to isolate our purest self from everything that surrounds us? at Praxis
5. Kent Williams’ acute sense of human anatomy has consistently been a staple in his work throughout his career, yet as we see with How Human Of You, the natural tendency we have to explore, experiment, and transition has lead Williams to fresh ground at 101/EXHIBIT
6. Using simple forms and creating broad swaths of rich texture, Alexis Portilla has mastered the subtle connection between soft and hard-edged abstraction. His surfaces are especially vibrant with layer upon layer of soft, yet rich color at Birman Wood Fine Art

 

November 4, 2014 | By: Shayna Kulik

Tuesday's Gallery Picks




gallerypicks_patternpulp83

We’re exploring artists who truly dive into their materials in this week’s  gallery picks, have a look.

*            *            *

1. Referencing the sphere of the Infinite (“Ehn Sof,” in Hebrew) as one approaches the limitless nature of the divine, Robert Sagerman compares the rhythmic back and forth actions of looking at and creating his work with the immersion of one in this transcendent field, concurrently acknowledging its endless nature at Thatcher Projects
2. In a career spanning just seventeen years, Judith Scott developed a unique and idiosyncratic method to produce a body of work of remarkable originality. Often working for weeks or months on individual pieces, she used yarn, thread, fabric, and other fibers to envelop found objects into fastidiously woven, wrapped, and bundled structures at Brooklyn Museum
3. Expanding the boundaries of Minimalism’s foundational grid, Alan Shields established his voice as a master of aesthetic invention through a wide-ranging exploration of materials and techniques at Parrish Art Museum
4. Re-use is fundamental in the artistic process of Daniel Gordon. He finds photographic images from the Internet, prints and assembles them into three-dimensional tableaus with scissors and glue. He photographs these arrangements with an 8×10-inch view camera. After the photograph is taken, the sculptures are dismantled and the different pieces (such as background patterns and body parts) are set aside for use in future works at FOAM
5. The sculptures, drawings, installations and videos by this French wife-husband duo, Lucy and Jorge Orta, collectively explore major concerns that define the 21st century: biodiversity, environmental conditions, climate change and exchange among cultures at Ben Maltz Gallery
6. Keving Chupik’s “Clarity of Youth” seek to pay homage to the to the legitimacy of these deceptively simple, yet profound moments of childhood play at Brett Wesley Gallery

October 28, 2014 | By: Shayna Kulik

Halloween + Skarfe + Lucas Grogan




lucasgrogan_skarfe

Just in time for Halloween, we have these majestic beauties hitting the market. Lucas Grogan recently did a collaboration with the Australian scarf company, Skarfe. The collection is an exquisite combination of illustration, styling and photography. I stumbled upon Grogan’s work on instagram a few years ago while in Bali on vacation. He had just completed a mural for Old Man’s Bali – I was an immediate fan. Staying true to his blue and white color palette, this recent debut presents wit, humor and detailing on oversized lightweight cotton scarves.

 

October 27, 2014 | By: Shayna Kulik

Tuesday's Gallery Picks




gallerypicks_patternpulp82

In this week’s gallery picks, our artists explore the various ways of seeing the world around us and beyond.

*            *            *

1. Canan Tolon’s paintings at first appear as purely abstract, but with time, the eye discovers familiar urban landscapes in the rhythmic painted streaks. She explores the visualization of space by creating an illusion of depth and engages the view in the game of seeking recognizable imagery and inventing a visual narrative at Von Lintel Gallery
2. Kate Shaw teases out an enduring fascination with interplanetary colonization and what it might mean. Following her travels from the frozen fjords of Iceland to the dense jungles of Costa Rica, Shaw presents here a series of imagined landscapes of the Red Planet at Fehily Contemporary
3. Penelope Umbrico allows the disorienting effects of the iPhone’s gravity sensor and the hallucinogenic effects of more than 500 camera app filters to break up, blend, distort, and de-stabilize the majestic peaks and summits that appear in the original photographs at Mark Moore Gallery
4. Judy Pfaff collages tree roots, limbs, honeycombs, and leaves with ambiguous biomorphic forms at Pavel Zoubok Gallery
5. Miya Ando uses her signature visual vocabulary—subtle gradations of form and color that capture moments in time—to explore impermanence. Hundreds of cascading Bodhi leaves change from green to yellow to orange and finally brown, alluding to momiji-gari, the Japanese tradition of traveling to scenic areas to view autumn leaves at Sundaram Tagore
6. Pedro Calapez ‘s latest exhibition meadow-curtain-round-broken line, offers a succinct overview of his fascination with spatial relationships, landscapes, and the significance of ways of seeing at Lynch Tham

 

October 21, 2014 | By: Shayna Kulik

Tuesday's Gallery Picks




gallerypicks_patternpulp81

Exploring the ephemeral with unique takes on traditional crafts and techniques .

*            *            *

1. Victoria Reichelt’s paintings and Carly Fischer’s sculptures explore a common vocabulary around the precarious medium of paper at This is No Fantasy
2. Yusuke Asai paints with dirt, an ephemeral, living medium at Rice Gallery
3. The sculptures in Théâtre de la Mémoire are reminiscent of meticulously detailed dollhouses. Giai-Miniet views his boxes as a metaphor for the human condition, which is comprised of biological functions, as well as a desire to achieve intellectual and spiritual enlightenment. at Jonathan Levine Gallery
4. Celebrating 5 years of We Make Carpets’ ability to turn most anything into a stunning carpet at MU
5. Multi-generational in scope, Thread Linesbrings together those pioneers who—challenging entrenched modernist hierarchies—first unraveled the distinction between textile and art with a new wave of contemporary practitioners who have inherited and expanded upon their groundbreaking gestures at The Drawing Center
6. Cynthia Ona Innis explores environmental transitions and shifting terrains above and below the surface, from the geysers of Iceland to the fault lines of the Eastern Sierras through the manipulation and layering of textiles at Traywick Contemporary

October 14, 2014 | By: Shayna Kulik

Lagom Design x Lotta Nieminen




1lagomdesign_lotta nieminen 2lagomdesign_lotta nieminen2

I love Lotta Neinimen’s work. I’ve been watching her creative evolution for a while now, from her days at Ro&Co to her departure into the land of freelance. Her work is so distinctive – regardless of the brand, it’s easy to spot her eye, her hand, and her creative direction. One of Neinimen’s latest projects is a collaboration with the UK card and paper company, Lagom Design. These wrapping paper patterns are delightful and the colorways add a sophisticated tone. Click here to peruse and purchase.

 

October 13, 2014 | By: Shayna Kulik

Tracking Repetitive + Awesome.
On Instagram.