Progress Reports

Corner, oil and acrylic on etching print, plexiglass, paper and plywood, 264.2 cm x 264.2 cm, 2010. Image credit: Thierry BalCorner, oil and acrylic on etching print, plexiglass, paper and plywood, 264.2 cm x 264.2 cm, 2010. Image credit: Thierry BalShift, etching print on plywood, 70 cm x 50 cm, 2010. Image credit: Thierry Bal

I presented Corner Piece as part of the 2010 exhibition Progress Reports, a multi-voiced exhibition selected by curators, artists and filmmakers. Showing alongside painting, sculpture, graphics and film by artists such as Kara Walker, Sanford Biggers, John Sealey, Tejal Shah and Naomi Kashiwagi, the show sought to reflect on the times we live in and changes to the social and cultural landscape in the 15 years since Iniva was founded

The Corner Piece expands on my interests vis-a-vis the relationship between architecture and gesture. The project uses as its base four square panels of plywood to frame the elements of the work, a grid-like structure created to identify different spaces for the work to exist in. In this structural platform the different objects can forge new relationships with each other. In effect, the wall acts as a neutral binder for the work. The individual pieces are placed within these walls and become different types of gestures. One is a standing figure, another is a painterly field and yet another is print on plywood. Each individual component is made in a different way and at a different speed, to further complicate any attempt at a singular interpretation of the work. Rather like Foucault’s The Order of Things, I am intrigued with the dissatisfaction of categorization, as a lot of my work deals with the very absence of boundaries, concepts so important when attempting interpretation or categorization, yet absent from my work.