This group exhibition features four artists who employ accretive processes to make their work: Austin Ballard, Ron Janowich, Jim Osman, and Raymond Saá.
Austin Ballard constructs his sculptures using woven caning derived from the rattan palm, and colored epoxy clay. The clay is extruded through the natural webbing of the rattan, creating overall patterns that enliven his surfaces with a textile character. The rattan is cut into irregular shapes and pieced together incrementally without the use of an interior mold. The resultant torquing, curving and arcing sculptures reference the body, talismans, as well as forms from nature such as augmented scholars' rocks.
Ron Janowich's abstract drawings are made with silverpoint and powdered graphite on clay-coated paper. The silverpoint line is essentially etched into the ground. As the medium is unforgiving and a mark cannot be erased or altered, each mark of the artist's hand is permanent and must be done deliberately. In this series of drawings, the artist slowly and carefully weaves a space both shallow and physical through the careful accumulation of a variety of cross-hatched marks and directional lines. Powdered graphite is rubbed into the silverpoint base and burnished until a metallic sheen is produced, creating reflective surfaces in works that share both a totemic physicality and a shimmering ephemeral quality.
The perception of space and the built world are explored in Jim Osman's additive constructions in wood. Using a full range of wood species, from lowly pine to elegant walnut, including off-cuts, found logs, and bark, Osman pieces together discrete and irregular elements with a variety of fasteners, glues, and joinery to create playful and sophisticated sculptures. All are polychromed to some degree, with the addition of color imparting movement and depth to the work. Translucent color washes enhance the natural wood grain in some elements while flatly painted areas highlight geometric facets of the forms. The sculptures fluidly shift scale between literal, physical objects, and the suggestion of both architectonic spaces and theatrical environments.
Raymond Saá uses an intuitive, accumulative process in the creation of his painted paper collage drawings. He begins his process by painting sheets of paper with gouache, then spending days cutting them into irregular, random shapes with an X-Acto blade. Using the cut forms as well as the negative shapes in the left-over paper, he arranges small groupings. Once a pleasing composition has been created, the shapes are sewn onto postcard-sized pieces of card stock. After Saá amasses between 40 and 60 cards, he assembles them into a larger composition. Cards are sewn together, overlapping one another like shingles from the bottom up, resulting in extensive, energetic drawings with complex internal rhythms and a multitude of lively patterns in vibrant colors.
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