Josh Blackwell
06 Jul - 05 Aug 2007
JOSH BLACKWELL
For Josh Blackwell’s second solo show at Kate MacGarry, he has made a series of drawings on paper depicting sweaters.
This body of work investigates woven and knitted textures as repetitive action. The drawings feature garish, rustic sweaters whose knitted surfaces are comprised of small marks repeated in wobbly sequence. Using paper as a pattern piece, the sweater is cut out, and painted with gouache. Testing the limits of corporeality as defined by clothing, these works deploy awkward shapes fusing bodily silhouettes with minimal compositions that refer to the works of Frank Stella, Richard Tuttle and Sonia Delaunay amongst others.
The title of the exhibition ...the march of casualization is not so easily stopped refers to a newspaper article about men choosing to wear their shirttails un-tucked and the societal ramifications of a general relaxing of formalities in dress and manners. Neither committed to canvas, stretched over a support, nor rectilinear in shape, these pieces hover between clothing and abstraction, possibly signifying a casualization of painting itself.
Josh Blackwell born 1972 lives and works in New York.
For Josh Blackwell’s second solo show at Kate MacGarry, he has made a series of drawings on paper depicting sweaters.
This body of work investigates woven and knitted textures as repetitive action. The drawings feature garish, rustic sweaters whose knitted surfaces are comprised of small marks repeated in wobbly sequence. Using paper as a pattern piece, the sweater is cut out, and painted with gouache. Testing the limits of corporeality as defined by clothing, these works deploy awkward shapes fusing bodily silhouettes with minimal compositions that refer to the works of Frank Stella, Richard Tuttle and Sonia Delaunay amongst others.
The title of the exhibition ...the march of casualization is not so easily stopped refers to a newspaper article about men choosing to wear their shirttails un-tucked and the societal ramifications of a general relaxing of formalities in dress and manners. Neither committed to canvas, stretched over a support, nor rectilinear in shape, these pieces hover between clothing and abstraction, possibly signifying a casualization of painting itself.
Josh Blackwell born 1972 lives and works in New York.