Material Abstraction : Lisa Stefanelli, Linda Fleming, Reed
Danziger, Katy Stone, Terry Maker, Derrick Velasquez, John
McEnroe, Jamie Brunson, Ted Larsen, Tyler Beard

Robischon Gallery presents ten distinctive gallery artists who further the exploration of dimensional or graphic abstraction through a range of media. Utilizing materials both unorthodox and traditionally-based in the modern; such as plastic resin, bookbinder’s vinyl, automotive paint and chromed steel – each artist’s work is conceptually and intuitively driven. The ten artists on view – Lisa Stefanelli, Linda Fleming, Reed Danziger, Jamie Brunson, Katy Stone, Ted Larsen, Terry Maker, Derrick Velasquez, John McEnroe and Tyler Beard – hale respectively from New York, California, Washington, New Mexico and Colorado. They come together with expansive individual offerings in “Material Abstraction” via remarkable form, impactful color and pure innovation.

 

Lisa Stefanelli

New York artist Lisa Stefanelli’s sensuous surfaces belie their time in an auto body shop where her panels are repeatedly sprayed with automotive paint to provide the ground for the artist’s hand-painted sinuous line that loops, twines and spills toward each panel’s edge. Expansive and luminous as if backlit or skyward, Stefanelli’s interconnected markings telegraph the fluid movement of the artist’s gesture; her calligraphic process a collaborative fusion of industrial technology and a precise handling of paint.

 

Linda Fleming

Linda Fleming’s wall sculptures elevate chromed steel well beyond its industrial and automotive uses transforming it into fluid, light-responsive forms that reflect and amplify their environments. Conversely, her small-scale, double-sided sculptures enliven through shifting views which reveal an ever-evolving cosmology. Entitled, “Meteorite” and “Pinnacle,” the new series speaks to Fleming’s interest in the shifting laws underlying the visible universe.

 

Reed Danziger

With densely interconnected geometries, linear marks and underlying organic passages, Bay Area artist Reed Danziger’s complex paintings coalesce into individual universes each seemingly with its own distinct gravitational pull. Visually unfolding and converging simultaneously, each two-dimensional work meshes traditional materials, oil and graphite, along with printmaking techniques into a delicate interweaving of mixed media. Danziger’s intimately textured abstractions reside on the threshold of unpredictability; extravagant with an understated sense of perpetual motion.

 

Katy Stone

Pacific Northwest artist Katy Stone’s installation-based work pushes the boundaries between sculpture, painting and drawing by bringing together all in a generative process. Resulting in layered cut and shaped painted metal or painted Duralar plastic and paper collages. Each piece-by-piece assembled work conveys the natural aspect of each material used. Stone’s bold and graceful metal works take shape via light and shadow as do the artist’s paper works which utilize transparent, delicate and drawn overlays with collaged pools of paint.

 

Terry Maker

Known for embracing atypical art materials, Colorado artist Terry Maker presents her signature book-forms all comprised of poured resin and in one case, with the unlikely addition of jawbreaker candy. Continuing in her creative search to divine “what’s inside” through her process of slicing and revealing unique layers in resin, Maker reinvigorates the ordinary and imparts new meaning with her three unexpected, vibrant tomes. 

 

Derrick Velasquez

Colorado artist Derrick Velasquez stacks bookbinding vinyl one thin strip at a time until a feather-edged, striped shape is formed over wall-mounted wooden anchors. Curved, angled or flat, in a striking balance of accumulated weight created by gravity alone, each sculpture references the cross sections of book pages with the strip of a spine at the top of the page-like layers beneath.  In the largest, free-form sculpture, the artist allows the material to freely drape in folded panels of bright color over a scaffolding armature. In all of the artist’s work, as well as in performances where the material envelopes the artist himself, Velasquez explores “how we physically interact with the tangible and manufactured structures of everyday life.”

 

John McEnroe

Discovering new and inventive ways to sculpturally engage with his chosen materials, Colorado artist John McEnroe’s use of resin, sand and nylon further the conversation of what is both figural and abstract or playful with a gritty intent. The artist’s deft handling of malleable nylon tubes when filled with wet sand reveal an impressive and demanding process while still in a state of flux. McEnroe leads his materials to their final sculptural form and shapes the character of each work through a relationship with materiality and the use of unexpected color and texture.

 

Jamie Brunson

Jamie Brunson’s “Veil” paintings each possess elegant surfaces painstakingly built with oil and alkyd wax on polyester over panel one layer at a time. A California painter, Brunson embraces the physical qualities of the paint in order to mimic the perceptual phenomena of her mediation practice. Blurring, overlapping and radiant dissolving forms emanate within their arenas and are suggestive of an inner light and a calm extending beyond the edge.

 

Ted Larsen

Concept driven while utilizing scrap metal from boats, cars and demolished architectural structures, New Mexico artist Ted Larsen merges the formal vocabulary of purist abstraction with the everyday. In adhering repurposed parts to wood or joining them with rivets, a compelling geometry is forged. Larsen’s process allows the viewer to identify with the familiarity of common-place and rough-hewn materials while presenting as counterpoint, the artists intently built and uniquely ordered constructions. As with all of Larsen’s work, there is interplay between form, material and wit made tangible

 

Tyler Beard

Colorado artist Tyler Beard juxtaposes saturated color, found landscape photographs and animal illustrations within geometric structure to invent a playful, meticulously-crafted personal formalism. With an eye toward a dialogue between shapes of undiluted color and image, Beard uses sheets of Pantone color and found printed material or constructed objects. Prompting curious narrative possibilities, the artist’s unique conflation demonstrates a particular wit and precision from the smallest pen scribble extracted from a drawing to the seamless joining of the collected and constructed materials.