The Approach

Amanda Ross-Ho

06 May - 19 Jun 2011

© Amanda Ross-Ho
TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE, detail, 2011
Urethane plastic, hand-dyed, hand-plaited wool
92x227x3 cm
AMANDA ROSS-HO
Time Waits For No One
6th May – 19th June 2011

The Approach is delighted to present TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE, Los Angeles based artist AmandaRoss-Ho’s first solo show in London.

Ross-Ho’s practice is rooted in navigating understanding, utilizing a wide variety of forms as vehiclesthrough which to embed a rigorous investigation of visual language. Her work regularly unites seeminglyoppositional languages and spaces: autobiographical artifacts are mined for formal qualities; traces andresidues from studio and gallery practice are meticulously re-created as deliberate gestures; boundariesbetween private work and public display are collapsed. She revisits images and forms in multipleiterations, creating scale shifts, moving among media, or using positive and negative structures.

For this show Ross-Ho has made a group of new works that function as both a continuation of existinglanguages within her practice as well as the introduction of a new vocabulary to a growing lexicon. All theworks exist on a broad arc, some representing a later stage of evolution and some functioning as newpoints of departure. This internal architecture, which aims to map the connectivity and simultaneity ofdisparate forms, is a fundamental aspect of Ross-Ho’s practice. The exhibition uses sculpture,photographs, painting and engagements with the gallery’s architecture to define terms of a constantlyevolving personal language. A variety of techniques – ranging from scaled photographs, to hand madetextiles, to commercial fabrication – diagram relationships between economies of production and presentation.

Visual translations and shifts of scale and time appear in many works in the show. TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE is an oversized, fabricated translation of a small needlepoint, the tone of the original objecttransformed in both volume and gravity by scaling the piece to beyond human size. TRILLIUM is anacrylic painting on raw canvas, translated directly from a found image of a hexagon quilt pattern. Theoriginal was clearly drawn by hand and contains errors and inconsistencies, and the manner in which it istranslated onto the canvas by Ross-Ho (hand hewn, not mechanized or stenciled) maintains this character.Created as a shaped canvas, this work takes on the presence of an object or sculpture more that apainting. This piece has a direct relation to DROPCLOTH QUILT, which sits on the gallery floor. Acollection of Ross-Ho’s studio dropcloths, used to protect the studio floor and to test paints and marks,were sent to Ross-Ho’s aunt Gina Ross, a master quiltmaker living in Central Ohio who was asked to treatthem like a printed fabric and produce a pieced quilt. Drying Rack with Footlocker Bag includes a blackand white bag that originally contained junk mail, receipts and office refuse. The discarded rubbish waslaboriously recycled in the studio and handmade into fresh sheets of paper, which were then put back into the bag.

Several works have been customized specifically to the architecture of the gallery, reflecting echoesresulting from the personal history of the space. PAINTINGS TO DISGUISE A SET OFARCHITECTURAL ELEMENTS is a set of canvases produced in specific response to the architecture ofthe space. By scaling each rectangle to each fixed element, a chance composition or taxonomy occurs. ASTACK OF BLACK PAPER was made in response to the holes left in wall from a work by Alice Channerin the previous show. Ross-Ho has used its traces as a departure point, each hole is punctuated by a singleearring that Ross-Ho has been collecting over time and the piece was a spontaneous response to theApproach gallery and the space between one show and another. Elaborate translations of found imagesand objects are juxtaposed with gestures of immediacy, creating tension between temporal and fixedstructures. Within the organizing principle of spatial and visual non-sequiturs is also a carefulconsideration of site, context and materiality. Ross-Ho’s work is conversational, initiating dialoguebetween forms through negotiations of presentation, craft, memory and experience. Singular worksdemonstrate the careful sorting of a broader totality, acting as coordinates within a consistently expandingnetwork.

Amanda Ross-Ho holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFAfrom the University of Southern California. Solo exhibitions include: Cherry and Martin, LosAngeles, Hoet Bekaert, Belgium, The Pomona Museum of Art, Mitchell-Innes and Nash NewYork, and The Visual Arts Center, Austin, TX. Forthcoming solo exhibitions include: TheMuseum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Selected group exhibitions include: ArtistsSpace, New York, Francesca Pia, Zurich, The Approach, London, The Atlanta Contemporary ArtCenter, The Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, The Orange County Museum of Art, The Museum ofContemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Drawing Center, New York, The Yerba Buena Center forthe Arts, San Francisco, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, The New Museum, NewYork, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the 2008 Whitney Biennial. Her work hasbeen featured in Artforum, The New York Times, ArtReview, Modern Painters, Art in America,The LA Times, Flash Art, and Frieze.
 

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