Brent Wadden. zerodayolds

About

Wadden’s third solo exhibition at the gallery consists of a new series of works which furthers his investigation of color and form.

Working within the vein of assemblage, Wadden’s large-scale works are conceived by piecing together his handwoven weavings, thereby transforming, smaller process-based pieces into larger, hard-edged, geometric abstractions. Wadden culls his used fibers from other weavers, estate sales and the internet, adding an element of unpredictability and improvisation to his compositional process.

Brent Wadden’s work constructs a direct dialogue between weaving and various modes of modernist art making, referencing both the historical and social constructs of craft and modernism. Wadden is not a professionally trained weaver, and his work therefore deals more in the history of painting than in that of textile arts or craft weaving. However, working in contrast to traditional painting methods, Wadden’s compositions are determined only during the final stages of preparation, and the use of light and dark create a stark positive and negative spaces, which optically shift from foreground to background.