Tony Lewis: Pall
@ Shane Campbell Gallery
2021 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago IL
Opening Saturday, July 11th, from 1PM - 3PM
On view through Saturday, August 29th
Lewis’ second solo exhibition with the gallery will present three bodies of work that continue his investigation of language structures and studio methods within drawing and collage.
The framed drawing in the exhibition is based on the artist’s study of Gregg Shorthand- an archaic writing system used to manually record speech. Lewis states that the recent body of work “expands the lexicon, and accesses a broader discussion of figure/ground within a canonized history of cosmic, pure abstraction, while pledging the work to a writing system within diagrammatic abstraction”. Titled Pall, the exhibition’s namesake, the work offers a targeted description of the large-scale floor drawings in the gallery.
The floor drawings function as the centerpiece of the exhibition and serve as living remnants of previous exhibitions. Originally begun as memorials for a once neutralized studio practice, each drawing collects and will continue to collect it’s own history of exhibition. The repeated exhibition of existing floor drawings allows for provisional modes of display, maturation, and a full lifespan of each work. For the current exhibition, Lewis will create a new 3,000 sq. ft. floor drawing that occupies the entire exhibition space.
Lastly, Lewis’ collages are built from hundreds of small text drawings that are methodically cut from the artist’s childhood education of Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. Drawn and reorganized, the collages allow for fresh subject matter to enter into the mind of a young boy and his friend, while staying true to Watterson’s comic book design.
Tony Lewis (born 1986 in LA and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio) lives and works in Chicago. He has a concurrent solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland June 6 – September 6, 2015. His work has been included in exhibitions at CAB, Brussels; Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York; Massimo de Carlo, London; and in the 2014 Whitney Biennial.
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Tags: Shane Campbell Gallery, Tony Lewis
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