Jennifer Bartlett, Lynda Benglis, Louise Fishman, Jane Irish, Joanna Pou- sette-Dart, David Row, and Pat Steir
For The Armory Show 2020, Locks Gallery is pleased to showcase important artists working within the field of abstraction. Each artist uniquely questions the intersection between object and painting, and presents a fresh approach to the traditional notions of abstraction by combining elements of geometry, semiotics and architecture into a new conceptual pictorial language.
Renowned artist Jennifer Bartlett’s (b. 1941) rigorously-crafted landscapes and grid paintings examine the succession of time, motion and seriality within a systematic framework. Her work incorporates basic subjects such as houses and mountains that are often translated into geometric forms and composition.
Influential artist Lynda Benglis’ (b. 1941) radical artistic practice of the 1960s re-defined the language of painting and sculpture to address issues of gender identity and equality. Working within the discourse of popular culture, her organic and manipulated bodily forms challenged the male-dominated gaze during that period. At The Armory, Locks Gallery will be exhibiting a selection of Benglis’ early 1970s beeswax and 1980s metal sculptures.
In conversation, Louise Fishman’s (b. 1939) contention with the masculinized movement of Abstract Expressionism is evident within her process-driven paintings. Her work contains an improvised structural grid created from strokes, skeins and slashes of paint, often working and reworking canvases over a long period of time.
A dedicated painter, ceramicist and a political advocate for social justice, Jane Irish (b. 1955) is a local in the Philadelphia art scene. Her Rococo-style domestic interior paintings and enameled porcelain, layered with poetic interpretations of the Vietnam War, juxtapose radical inferences with romantic transcendent beauty. Locks Gallery is pleased to present her never-before-seen series of ceramic finials at The Armory, as well as recent painting.
Established American artist Joanna Pousette-Dart (b. 1947) employs color and line to control the movement of light. The open desert plains in Galisteo, New Mexico have been integral in Pousette-Dart’s work, providing a frame-work to re-contextualize the topography of the land into new harmonious configurations.
Applying the theories of semiotics and seriality, American artist David Row’s (b. 1949) series of deep saturated color-field polygonal shaped canvases transform traditional principles of abstraction into new spatial manipulations. Interrupting classic Euclidean geometry, his structures dissolve into the space or site they occupy and simultaneously, become part of the architecture.
Acclaimed abstract artist Pat Steir (b. 1938) is best known for her continuous visual fields of dripped, splashed and fluid waterfall outpourings which began in the late 80s. A deeply personal practice, she embraces chance as a conceptual backbone in her work, where the process and choreography of creation is just as important as the resulting canvas.
For additional information please contact Locks Gallery.
