Lynda Benglis, Eric N. Mack, Kelley Walker
September 8 – October 10, 2020
A three-person exhibition of work by Lynda Benglis, Eric N. Mack, and Kelley Walker examines the artists’ shared interest in transforming quotidian or mass-produced materials through layering, draping, and collage. Their distinct bodies of work are linked by a perceptive and hand-crafted approach to adornment, and each occupies a liminal space between media.
Produced between 2013 and 2018, Lynda Benglis’s wall sculptures are made from handmade paper that the artist carefully wraps around an armature of chicken wire. Their white or sand-toned surfaces are then brushed with isolated gestures of acrylic medium, paint, ground coal, glitter, and gold leaf. The glittering totems demonstrate the artist’s commitment to surface ornamentation through color, material, and texture, as well as her engagement with the physiology of production.
A selection of handsewn fabric sculptures by Eric N. Mack are composed from assorted garments or textile scraps including printed scarves, polyester, corduroy, oil cloth, and bleached or tie-dyed muslin. The works draw much of their significance from both the symbolic and utilitarian qualities of their medium, gesturing toward a material culture that has its roots outside art institutions. Moored to the ceiling and walls at discrete pivot points, the collaged sculptures reframe the room through articulation and collision.
Kelley Walker’s rectangular Screen to Screen paintings are montages of superimposed silkscreened images that blur the distinction between the tool of painting and its support. Also on view are shimmering technicolor wall works composed of thin panels of mirrored plexiglass. Meticulously cut using a handheld router, the abstractions reference the evocative shapes of Rorschach inkblots as appropriated by Andy Warhol.