Paper Trail: Group Exhibition

Opening reception: Thursday, June 25, 6–8 PM

For inquirites, please contact:

info@boeskygallery.com

Boesky Gallery is pleased to present Paper Trail, an exhibition of works on paper by 21 artists from the gallery’s program. Featuring drawings, watercolors, photographs, and prints, Paper Trail follows a series of thematic threads evident throughout the gallery’s program: material experimentation, mechanics of translation, sustained acts of looking, and the pursuit of history and memory. Revealing paper as a site of experimentation, record keeping, archiving, and discovery, the exhibition captures each artist in the act of pursuing an idea—and following wherever it may lead.  

With their work featured in Paper Trail, Kwamé Azure Gomez, Allison Janae Hamilton, Jay Heikes, Aubrey Levinthal, and Celeste Rapone experiment with material and technique. Translating the rich, layered materiality of her painting practice onto paper, Kwamé Azure Gomez (b. 1999; Akron, OH) captures the spiritual resonance of movement in acrylic, spray paint, and colored pencil. Revisiting imagery first developed with her Yard Sign works on paper, Allison Janae Hamilton (b. 1984; Lexington, KY) draws attention to the brutal history of the turpentine industry in the American South. With his Music for Minor Planets works, Jay Heikes (b. 1975; Princeton, NJ)—whose practice is an endless series of material experimentations—composes sheet music for the fracturing of time in graphite and India ink. Stripping her characteristic compositions of all but their most essential details, Aubrey Levinthal (b. 1986; Philadelphia, PA) reimagines her scenes of everyday life in spare, poetic monoprints. Experimenting with watercolor, Celeste Rapone (b. 1985; New Jersey) conjures vivid spring flowers.

Ghada Amer, Gina Beavers, Sarah Meyohas, Suzanne McClelland, and Claudia Wieser use paper as a support to examine the mechanisms by which visual languages transform across time and media. Appropriating imagery from pornography, Ghada Amer (b. 1963; Cairo, Egypt) subverts the misogynistic origins and reimagines her figures in moments of ecstasy, pleasure, and tenderness. Working with pastel and gouache, Gina Beavers (b. 1974; Athens, Greece) translates the aesthetics of makeup tutorials into lush drawings and online shopping into rich, painterly abstraction. Borrowing imagery from Greco-Roman antiquity, Suzanne McClelland (b. 1959, Jacksonville, FL) continues her ongoing examination of the malleability of language and symbol. Using a custom-built plotter machine, Sarah Meyohas (b. 1991, New York, NY) produces strikingly impressionistic pastel drawings in pastel by way of a mechanized hand. In meticulous, colored-pencil and gold-leaf drawings, Claudia Wieser (b. 1973; Freilassing, Germany) draws on the formal language of geometric abstraction to create radiant, meditative compositions.

The works of Jennifer Bartlett, Sanford Biggers, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Jammie Holmes, and Serge Alain Nitegeka reflect a desire to capture the particular sensations evoked by a specific place. In pastel studies made in preparation for the creation of theater sets, Jennifer Bartlett (1941–2022) conjures the tangible feeling of the atmosphere of walking along a riverbed. With his ongoing suite of Unsui works, Sanford Biggers (b. 1970; Los Angeles, CA) employs the distinctive cloud formations found on the East End of Long Island as a metaphor for enlightenment and possibility. With his Rideau works from the 1980s, Pier Paolo Calzolari (b. 1942, Bologna, Italy) employs rich, saturated hues to capture the effects of light on the surface of the Donaukanal in Vienna. Sketching daffodils abloom in a Parisian park, Jammie Holmes (b. 1984, Thibodaux, LA) appropriates symbolic traditions associated with flowers in historic paintings. In washy acrylic, Serge Alain Nitegeka (b. 1983; Rwanda) conjures the disorientation of forced migration and political displacement. 

Gabriel Chaile, Martyn Cross, Barnaby Furnas, Hannah van Bart, and Tianyue Zhong use works on paper as a method for excavating various memories and histories—both real and imagined. Acting as both anthropologist and storyteller, Gabriel Chaile (b. 1985; San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina) reinterprets the formal and material language of indigenous communities in Northeast Argentina in charcoal and chalk pastel drawings. Carrying small colored pencil drawings in his pocket day-to-day, Martyn Cross (b. 1975; Yate, United Kingdom) allows the paper to absorb oil from his hands, stains from his pocket snacks, and scratches from his house keys—tranforming them into records of time. In washy watercolor, Barnaby Furnas (b. 1973; Philadelphia, PA) examines themes of human triumph and tragedy through ecstatic depictions of historic battles. In enigmatic graphite drawings, Hannah van Bart (b. 1963; Oud-Zuilen, Maarssen, the Netherlands) conjures fleeting sensorial memories. Embedding passing glimpses of figuration within expressive, gestural abstraction, Tianyue Zhong (b. 1994; Chengdu, China) examines the transient nature of memory.

Following these thematic threads, Paper Trail offers evidence of the work on paper as a site of experimentation and discovery—as a place where these artists generate new ideas, where they work through various conceptual threads. This is perhaps best embodied by a 2009 John Waters (b. 1946; Baltimore, MD) photograph, Shooting Script. In the photo, Waters depicts a grid of nine empty legal pads, evidence of torn yellow pages visible near the binding, In the context of Paper Trail, Shooting Script operates as a metaphor for the artistic process itself—a paper trail tracing the artists’ ideas as they take form on paper and beyond.