Isa Melsheimer

Pivoting on her interest in modern architecture, Isa Melsheimer presents a series of sculptures alongside gouaches and a series of installations. Five sculptures each titled Possibility of a Ruin (all works 2016) are made out of concrete, in an allusion to Brutalist architecture, and each of them also contains a green glazed ceramic sculpture resembling an abstracted plant. The stark aesthetic of the cast geometry here is combined with representations of natural growth and its inevitable decay. The imperfections and instability in the sculptures’ construction and the oxidation of the ceramics’ glazes imply that man-made creations—including architecture—may be part of the cycle of nature, rather than being in opposition to it. In Brutalism’s case, though, decay is also caused by human depreciation.

In seven gouache paintings on paper, well-known buildings of the genre such as John Bancroft’s Pimlico School are depicted in colorful, sometimes romantic settings—under an orange-yellowish sky, for instance, or with deep-blue crystals added to the scenery. There is an enchantment and some nostalgia in the way the artist looks at this architecture. More significant, though, is that she adds a different context and texture to this historic and widely unappreciated style. Three installations, collectively titled “Hyperboloïde,” made out of thin white threads, draw fragile lines through large parts of the gallery, with two referencing walls that have been removed from the building throughout the years. The solidity of concrete forms is rendered as relative, simply a matter of perspective.