Mosie Romney and Juan Gutierrez

About

Mosie Romney will exhibit new paintings showing both her figurative and abstract styles. Romney begins her process by sourcing black-and-white vernacular photographs and tchotchkes to create her own saturated fantasies of black life in glittering lush interiors. Using materials such as sand, chalk, pastel, oil paint and spray paint on canvas, she builds an intensely layered color palette with varied textures resulting in work with tremendous visual depth. Influenced by the late Martiniquan writer and poet Édouard Glissant’s idea of the right to opacity, her painted imagery of gates punctuate how far we are let in. The recurring visual motif originated from Romney’s obsession with swans, but also functions as doorways, exits, points of access and conduits. At times the gates also reference DNA strands, metallic vines, snails, or spirals.

The figures in the exhibition are protected by a theoretical gate and observe the viewer from an interior place of safety, while the gate paintings show structural transparency and reference ideas of protection through their use of line. Each figure ambivalently greets the viewer and looks comfortable in their position. This is particularly evident in a painting titled ​Aura​, in which a woman sits in the center of a painted frame, calmly and confidently looking out from beneath a large-brimmed hat under which a force field emanates. In both the abstract and figurative works, the subject matter feels protected and there is agency in the level of transparency. Romney’s lateral gaze touches on everything denied by representation, in turn, creating freer articulations of historical documents.

Gutierrez will show work from his “poured collection”, a project that emerged with an intention to deeplyunderstandmaterialsandtakethemintoanewmodeofexpression. Hecreateseachpieceby pouring more than 300 cups of resin into a mold to form an abstract composition with multiple color palettes. The exhibition includes chairs, tables and two lighting pieces - a sconce and a chandelier with 44 bulbs all made from the poured resin. The project explores the borders between sculpture, painting and function by contrasting the organic and fluid nature of the material with the rigidity of the furniture edges.

Gutierrez uses resin as the first part of an ongoing series that explores liquids that then become a solid. The artist’s process began by breaking, distorting and agglutinating the resin. After examining the results he altered the material through folding, cutting, hitting and throwing. Recognizing the materials’ potential, the artist changed his process over and over until an idea, project or concept was triggered. Working within certain parameters such as pouring the material from different heights, Gutierrez became familiar with the resin’s spontaneous behavior and guided the“accidents” needed to create the aesthetic required for each piece. Gutierrez sees this process as an expansion of his vocabulary and a new way to express himself. Creating a process without prescribed results gives the artist a freedom of movement in furniture-making that allows for experimentation and new visions.