13 Ways Forever Expanding Compartments
13 Ways Forever Expanding Compartments
Foxy Production presents "13 Ways Forever Expanding Compartments" by
Yuh-Shioh Wong, a solo exhibition of new sculptural and painterly
assemblages. Wong has produced a striking environment of contrasting
figures, colors, materials, shapes and shadows. In the tradition of
Franz West or Isa Genzken, she makes highly inventive connections
between widely disparate elements in order to investigate the drive
to create ideal forms. "13 Ways" highlights how the experimental
nature of her practice - her playful mixing and matching of found
and improvised elements - relates to the rich conceptual base of her
ideas about impermanence, perception and visibility.
The exhibition comprises a series of intricate sculptural works that
juxtapose found objects with carved structures, and acrylic and oil
paintings, some of which are placed on mirrored shelves.Wong's
objects incorporate oil, burlap, Styrofoam, plaster,wood, seeds and
copper, among other materials, in paradoxically studied yet
improvisational ways. Her paintings, with their surprising
association of forms: angular shapes jostling with flowing ribbons,
bubbles, or the organic lines of twigs, evoke figures or scenes
without completely defining them.
Wong consistently suggests narratives that are never fully revealed
or resolved with the intent of investigating the limits of visual
recollection and representation. Bowerbirds (Flying Casanovas) is a
birdhouse-like construction with a periscopic view that reveals a
wooden bird within a fabric lined interior, while Ceiling to Sky
(X-tra Blue) is a long staircase in miniature, fashioned from
Styrofoam, stucco and ribbon. Both works have a dynamic theatrical
resonance: they seem to allude to scenarios or events that may have
just happened, or are just about to happen.
Many of the works create holistic, expressive micro-environments
that engage with an expanded sense of the natural world. The
floor-based Lens Plant, an assemblage of a painting frame, potting
mix, a lighted plastic orb, a rolled up drawing, and a flower-like
construction with a lens at its center, seems - despite the
heterogeneity of its ingredients - to be a portal to a secret
inner universe.
Wong's uncanny incorporations of unexpected elements seem to mine
the subconscious for inspiration. She dramatizes materials through
her treatment and placement of them. Textures and forms reverberate
with lyrical power despite a deliberate economy of means.
Candle-Holder Live-Forever, an acrylic painting resting on a
mirrored shelf along with a single acorn, has ambiguous and
unsettlingly visceral cross-sections of embryonic flora twirling out
in different directions. The collage, Always Been Transitory and
Corruptible, comprising acrylic paint and metal foil, hints at but
never defines figures, sketching a non-linear narrative that tries
to make sense of the forgotten, the unseen, or the unknown.
Foxy Productions
617 West 27th Street - New York
Free admission