Hamiltonian Gallery and Hamiltonian Artists are proud to announce the
opening of their fourth exhibition featuring the work of Mark Cameron Boyd,
Christian Benefiel and Leah Frankel. Using archetypal
objects, commonly used in their own practices, each artist manipulates,
strips, cleaves, shrouds and sheathes their source material into new forms yet
diametrically preserves its essence.
In “Theories and Documents,” Mark Cameron Boyd paints his own sentences as
the subjects of his visual works, and through this practice, Boyd investigates
text as a language for painting. Boyd’s art making process is directly apprised from his teaching and reading of art theory texts.
In Boyd’s latest series, “Documents and Theories,” he creates numerous 4 x 6”
blackboard panels on which drawn notecards are copied
verbatim from his teachings of contemporary art theory, then, bisected. Also
included in this body of work are large interactive panels that engage the
viewer to read, decipher and literally complete the meaning of the text.
Drawn to construction or demolition objects, such as welding rods and
chain-saw chains, that distinctly carry an air of strength and power, yet are
disposable, Christian Benefiel disunites these
objects from their working ensemble and preserves them in iron or paper. The
natural chemical processes that render these objects useless in the first
place, have, in turn, preserved them from their destruction. In his mélange of
sculptural works, Benefiel has constructed a bread
market, although the bread is iron-casted. In this installation, Benefiel uses two universal staples of culture – bread and
iron – and demonstrates that both commodities share the same qualities of
market-driven consumption.
Leah Frankel deliberates over the functionality of language in this quickly
amalgamating world. Employing hundreds of books written in many different languages,
Frankel transforms these pages and shells of the books into a visual imagery
that, in her eyes, is far more expressive than the bounds of language would
ever allow. Ripping out page after page – releasing them from their “binds” –
then manipulating them in wax, Frankel authors a new contextual environment of
organic, repetitive forms that are born from the text that she now deems
secondary.
For additional information please contact:
Jacqueline Ionita, Gallery Director
Hamiltonian Gallery
202.332.1116
jackie at hamiltoniangallery.com
www.hamiltonianartists.org
www.hamiltoniangallery.com