ESSENTIAL STRUCTURE

October 7-November 17, 2016

Danielle Mysliwiec
Sabine Reckewell
 

Chandra Cerrito Contemporary is pleased to present Essential Structure: New Work by Danielle Mysliwiec and Sabine Reckewell. In this exhibition, our assumptions about media are upended by sculptural paintings that resemble weavings and drawings that are constructed of thread or yarn.

In Danielle Mysliwiec's latest work, she continues her boundary-pushing exploration of abstract, process-driven painting that results in what the artist refers to as the "illusion of interwoven warp and weft." Using a unique method of extruding tiny strands of oil paint and applying them in a repetitive, systematic way, Mysliwiec constructs intricately patterned surfaces that are accumulations of marks, rather than brushstrokes. Her works distinctly encapsulate the time and methodical labor invested in their creation. Given their reduced and often monochromatic color palettes, depiction of imagery is beside the point. We respond to these paintings as though they are sculpture--we perceive light reflecting off and shadows within their shallow dimensional surfaces, and notice how they change as we move around them. Light, shadow and color cohere to form bewildering textured skins.  

While Mysliwiec uses paint in a non-figurative way that mimics textiles, Sabine Reckewell uses fiber materials to create drawings that suggest architectural forms. Known for creating large-scale volumetric spaces with string, Reckewell's most recent work confines the materials and techniques of her installations to two dimensions. The oversize wall drawings and small embroideries featured in Essential Structureappear to be simplified, schematic drawings of imagined modernist buildings. The abstracted block-like shapes oscillate between appearing to protrude in space and flattening out. They are drawn in slightly askew perspective using minimal means of parallel or converging lines that define each plane. The wall drawings are comprised of two or three colors of yarn held taut by nails, while the embroideries are made with cotton thread stitched through canvas paper. Explaining the juxtaposition of medium and imagery, Reckewell says, "I like the absurdity of trying to imbue embroidery with architectural ambitions." Like Mysliwiec, Reckewell incorporates repetition, geometry, and linear patterns, but in this case, she utilizes those to create the illusion of volume and allude to fundamental forms of modern architecture.

About the Artists

Danielle Mysliwiec holds a BA from Wesleyan University and an MFA from Hunter College. Mysliwiec has had recent solo exhibitions at Novella Gallery in New York and Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Mixed Greens and Transmitter (NY), Rockelmann & (Berlin), and Heiner Contemporary among others. Her paintings have been featured and reviewed in publications including The Brooklyn Rail, Art Fag City, The Washington Post, B'more Art, and The San Francisco Examiner.  Recent award include the Pollack Krasner Fellowship at The Vermont Studio Center and residencies at Two Coats of Paint and The Wassaic Project. She is also a contributor to the Brooklyn Rail. Mysliwiec has been included in two previous group exhibitions at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary.

Sabine Reckewell was born in Germany, where she studied at the Bauhaus-based Institution Academy of Fine Arts in Kassel. She earned a BS in textile design at University of California, Davis, and an MFA in textile art at Fiberworks in Berkeley and Lone Mountain College in San Francisco. Reckewell's work has been exhibited at the Art Museum of Sonoma County in Santa Rosa, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery on Grove Street, Berkeley Art Center, di Rosa in Napa, Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, Paradise Ridge Winery sculpture park in Santa Rosa, and Art Market San Francisco. Outside the Bay Area, she has exhibited at the Drawing Center and Scope Art Fair in New York, Lyons Weir Gallery in Chicago, Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, IN, and at Claremont Graduate University Art Gallery and Pitzer College in Claremont, CA. This is her fifth exhibition at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary.