EXHIBITIONS
ISN'T IT, Ivin Ballen, Pello Irazu, Richard Rezac, Tamara Zahaykevich
June 13 - August 16, 2008
TONY WIGHT GALLERY is pleased to present Isn’t It, a group exhibition featuring works by Ivin Ballen, Pello Irazu, Richard Rezac and Tamara Zahaykevich. Focusing on the interplay of material construction and representation, the works in this exhibition confront some potential disparities between modes of assembly and resemblance.
Ivin Ballen reinforces the tangibility of paintings-as-objects in order to investigate the changeability of perception. After constructing maquettes out of cardboard, duct tape, plastic bottles, garbage bags, and other common detritus, Ballen uses fiberglass and aquaresin to makes casts of these assemblages. The resulting structures are painted with acrylic, gouache, and oil paints to develop trompe l'oeil passages that reference the original found objects. Upon closer inspection, the illusory qualities of Ballen’s work are interrupted by textural and chromatic subtleties that expose and reinforce the very process of their making.
Pello Irazu works with objects and images drawn from his studio to explore the space between photographic representation, painting and sculpture. Irazu alters and reconfigures such objects as a chair, stepladder, cardboard folders and boxes, then casts these items in aluminum and paints them. Irazu concurrently photographs the sculptures in his studio environment and paints on the surfaces of these photographs. This gesture further plays upon common expectations of two-and-three-dimensionality by upturning relationships between surface and image.
Richard Rezac constructs sculptures out of steel, welded aluminum, cast bronze, cast plaster, cast resin, and painted wood, often utilizing two or three disparate materials and forms within an individual work. Pared-down and modestly scaled, Rezac’s abstractions consider the sculptural form through permutations of familiar shapes and patterns. Rezac’s sculptures always begin with drawings, “studies” that at once suggest the precision of architectural renderings and the looseness of using geometry as an intuitive language.
Tamara Zahaykevich uses foam core, paper, and paint to construct sculptures that address the cumulative process of bridging form and content. The inclusion of studio debris such as foam core remnants and paint mixing palettes increase the works’ approachability and reveal the artist’s attachment to thrift and makeshift construction. These low-tech material choices situate the works within the mundane, and draw attention to Zahaykevich’s continual reassessment of how meaning is made.
Ivin Ballen has been featured in solo exhibitions at Winkleman Gallery, New York and Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Ferndale, MI. Group exhibitions include Accidental Blackspot at Markus Winter, Berlin and Can I borrow your spaceship? at the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit. Accidental Blackspot will travel this summer to Freight + Volume in New York.
Pello Irazu has exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Biennale, the Reina Sofia and the Guggenheim Museum. Irazu's work is held in the collections of major institutions including The Guggenheim, Bilbao, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona, The Reina Sofia, Madrid, the Yves Klein Foundation, Arizona and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego.
Richard Rezac’s work was the subject of a ten-year survey at the Portland Museum of Art in 2006. Other recent solo exhibitions include Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago; Feature Inc., New York; James Harris Gallery, Seattle; and Marc Foxx, Los Angeles. Recent group exhibitions include Drawing as a Process in Contemporary Art at the Smart Museum of Art, Chicago; 48th Corcoran Biennial: Closer to Home at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; and The Center is Anywhere at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Tamara Zahaykevich has exhibited widely nationally and internationally. Recent exhibitions include Shit: Found Stuff Used at Feature Inc.; Tamara Zahaykevich at He Said – She Said, Oak Park, IL; Accidental Blackspot at Markus Winter, Berlin; Notes of Space at Gist Galerie, Amsterdam; You have to be almost gifted to do what I do at Alexander and Bonin, New York. In 2007, Zahaykevich was the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant.