The Elizabeth Harris Gallery is pleased to present 2 + 2 = 4 , an exhibition of works and installations by four sculptors; steve currie, george kroenert, gelah penn and susanna starr . The works of these artists are unified by their sense of line in three-dimensional space. Use of vibrant color or the contrasting absence of color within their work serves to bring further cohesiveness to this equation.
Steve Currie has made three related works unified by their use of line. The sculpture “Tangle #7” is a very tight tangle consisting of a localized collection of lines. The work “Pulse” is an expansive line that serves as a conduit connecting two locations. Finally, in “Spine” a collection of lines defines a form that spans from floor to ceiling. This simple form is made of a complex repetition of looping lines assembled to become a funnel. It can be seen as a skeletal form that defines an interior volume paired with a single line of color. The line of color serves as a conduit or spinal cord.
The sculptures are intended to be simultaneously fluid and structural. The wire at times defines a volume and at time functions as a single linear element ranging from complex to spare.
George Kroenert presents a sculpture installation in the rear gallery, fabricated from construction and standard lighting materials, consisting of three elements known as the Tent, the Ball, and the Wall. George’s work is influenced by physics and cosmology; he is especially concerned with the properties of light and distance. In this work the Tent, constructed of cable and fiberglass rods covered with orange and yellow mesh, forms an envelope—much like the edge of a universe—that gives context to the Ball and the Wall. The Ball, a mass of fluorescent lamp armatures, is illuminated and covered with colored cable ties. It is an explosive form contained by the protective Tent. The Wall is given context and form by the Tent rods and mesh. The elements in the Ball migrate to the Wall, becoming less chaotic.
The materials used in this installation are plastic covered cable, orange fiberglass marking poles, orange woven safety mesh, yellow plastic grid mesh, various shape and size fluorescent lamps, colored cable ties, electrical wire and connections and lamp ballasts.
Gelah Penn examines the linear language of drawing in sculptural space. Expanding on the lexicon of gestural abstraction, she deploys monofilament, mosquito netting, and other synthetic materials in site-specific installations to construct what she terms a “meaty ephemerality.” The resulting structures seem to simultaneously inhabit, define and confound their architectural parameters. Although non-narrative, the work abounds in allusion — from the shadowy psychological undertow of film noir to the piercing linear elements of Constructivist image-making.
Susanna Starr uses enlarged and distorted images of vintage lace doilies as color skeletons to actually suspend the paint in mid-air. Entirely hand-cut, the slightly translucent sheets both absorb and reflect color – glowing and shifting as the viewer moves around them. Like an absorbent sponge, the open pores of the lace create space for the color to move and change. Hung on the wall, the delicate layers of color float out in lacy screens that hover in a fragile space between painting and sculpture. Hung from the ceiling, the large distorted doilies are clearly planar. The overlapping layers of color entice the viewer to encircle the pieces and there is a point at which the razor thin sheets all but disappear, before a new and surprising color dynamic fully emerges on the other side. Hanging side-by-side from a single cable, these pieces resemble giant brushstrokes of color; a painting gesture transformed into fully sculptural objects.
