Swiss Cheese Field

May 14 - July 2, 2009
Opening reception: Thursday, May 21, 5 - 7PM

Senior & Shopmaker Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new monoprint constructions by Jessica Stockholder which coincides with both Flooded Chambers Maid, the artist’s first major outdoor installation in the U.S. presented by the Madison Square Park
Conservancy Art Program, and Sail Cloth Tears, a show of new sculpture at Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery in Chelsea.  The exhibition consists of works on paper which capture in two dimensions the exuberance, spontaneity, and wit of her environmental installations.

Stockholder attracted attention in the late 1980s with sculpture and installations made of mundane materials juxtaposed in wild combinations.  Rather than offering commentary on social issues, her combines of consumer detritus celebrate the serendipitous beauty to be found in everyday materials, and reveal the artist’s focus on formal issues of artmaking such as color, composition, and texture. In her new print series, produced at Two Palms Press in New York, Stockholder organized seemingly random fragments, including photographs screenprinted onto sheets of handmade paper, laser-cut textiles, blobs of paint, and other collaged materials into compositions which can suggest still lifes, interiors, or landscapes. The materials are fused together under tremendous pressure in a hydraulic press. Each image evolves through an additive process as the artist continues to layer collage elements, paint, and engraved plates in subsequent passes through the press. The effects can be surprisingly lyrical given the nature of her materials, and create tension between real objects and spatial illusion.

Jessica Stockholder was born in 1959 in Seattle, and resides in New Haven where, since 1999, she has been Director of Graduate Studies in Sculpture at Yale University. A career survey exhibition, Jessica Stockholder: Kissing the Wall, Works 1988-2003, was organized by the Blaffer Art Gallery, University of Houston , TX and the Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Her work is in numerous public collections including the Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and many others.

Untitled, 2009, mixed media, 30 x 40 inches

Gallery hours are Tuesday-Friday, 10am-6pm, and Saturday, 11am-6pm. For further information, contact Betsy Senior or Laurence Shopmaker.