Lisa Williamson’s huge aluminum canvases loom, droop, fold, and swell. Initially flat sheets affixed to the wall, they bulge at the corners or flop over at the top. Shy and reclusive as they retract toward the wall, they still extend a limb into space, a foot beckoning out. The five canvases cling to the contours of the gallery’s surfaces. As part of the aptly named “Body Boards” series (all works 2016), they level the corporeal. Anatomical references are both overt and sly. Nerves is a pine-green slat pocked with pink round shapes, a sea of erogenous parts. Another piece, Sunbather is a bright beach towel that imagines a potential body in title and scale. Each work carefully orchestrates its proximate space, choreographing a vicinity of viewing.
A Pop-art splashiness—think Isa Genzken or Kiki Kogelnik—lends a vibrancy to these hard boards, whose stripes and clean edges likewise recall Minimalism and a Finish Fetish aesthetic. The colors are cartoonish, but they joke with somber punch lines. Some, clearly, are funnier than others. Tsunami, a cheerful blue, winks as it curls, a playful wave rendered midcrash in flattened metal. Only its title warns of a precarious storm. And in Williamson’s world, a viewer might even take refuge under it.
