Loren Erdrich: Light Escapes From The Body

16 aug 202428 sep 2024

Bricks Gallery is pleased to present Light Escapes From The Body, a solo exhibition by Loren Erdrich, with an opening reception on Friday, August 16th, from 5 – 8 PM. This marks Erdrich’s first solo exhibition with the gallery and her debut in Scandinavia, featuring 12 intimately scaled paintings on raw muslin, accompanied by ceramic sculptures.

In this new body of work, Loren Erdrich explores process and materials in painting, focusing on how these elements contribute to the creation of compositions, forms, and colors. As suggested by the exhibition title, Erdrich also examines the concept of light in relation to these processes and materials, observing how light manifests and is transmitted in various shapes and forms.

“This group of paintings pursues the poetic link between the material and the incorporeal. Love and loss are inexorably connected. In both, there is an undoing, a transformation, a becoming of something new. Within the work are acts of transmogrification: bodies become stars, eyes become birds, flowers become flames. Compositional elements transform throughout as if in a game of telephone.

My materials are the starting point for these paintings rather than my subjects. I paint on raw muslin with water, dyes, pigments and other water-based mediums that are largely fluid, inherently difficult to control and prone to transgressing boundaries. These qualities of the media, coupled with my often “incorrect” ways of using them, create a dynamic push and pull between deliberate and unintentional gestures. Representational elements emerge over time through a process that is vulnerable and responsive to the changing circumstances of each painting. The materials have agency and yield compositions that disrupt the false binary of abstraction and representation.

In a culture that demands speed, both my process and resultant paintings require slowing down. This deceleration feels like a radical act. Variations in hue and luminance slowly emerge as the fabric dries and shift with a change in the light. Rich washes of color bleed and jostle with their neighbors. Stubbornly matte surfaces refuse to reflect light, yet passages appear to glow. Visual noise appears out of nowhere. Slowly, elements overlooked in search of instant gratification become apparent.

To paint in this manner is somewhat maddening. My ability to edit is radically compromised by my choice of medium. Other mediums might be easier, produce less heartache. But I cherish this material’s set of idiosyncratic risks and possibilities, over a guarantee of efficacy. Love and loss both demand a vulnerability.”

-Loren Erdrich, 2024

Loren Erdrich (b. 1978) is an American artist, who lives and works in New York City. She holds an MFA from Buren College of Art, National University of Ireland Galway (IRE), and an BFA from the School of the Art Institute, Chicago, IL (US). Recent exhibitions include ‘Little Stars’ at SHRINE (Los Angeles, CA, US), ‘FAINT’ at Wasserman Projects (Detroit, MI, US), and ‘Loren Erdrich’ at The Untitled Space (New York, NY, US). In 2023, Erdrich was awarded the residency at Yaddo (Saratoga Springs, NY, US).

Kilde:
Bricks Gallery