AGNES RAY
AGNES RAY
It takes time to make art. All artistic processes unfold over a period of time, but this is not always articulated in the finished work. This exhibition features three artists who grapple with ideas of time - whose work is temporal, but not necessarily time-based. These artists are using various concepts of time purposefully to assign and explore meaning. Ideas such as “event,” “present,” and “history” demonstrate a common preoccupation with time in the drawings of Theodore Zanardelli, the performances of Lori Esposito, and the paintings of Agnes Ray.
With an academic background in anthropology and archaeology, Agnes Ray often approaches the objects she makes from the perspective of a social scientist. Her recent work is an example of this hybridization, a series of exuberant abstract works made through the cannibalization of her collection of used canvases. This accumulation of past experiments, abandoned attempts, and outright failures provided the foundation (literally and figuratively) for multiple new layers of paint and collaged material sourced from the nooks and crannies of the studio. These paintings are not "new." They are just older than they were before. Some by a number of months - others by 5 or more years. History is made manifest in the overlapping layers laid down on canvas. Like archaeological strata, the underlying compositions may be completely obliterated by more recent application. In others, traces of former selves still shine through. But visible or not, the past is still present through its influence on the present form. This is history.
2015. 14"x11.” Mixed media on canvas.
2016. 30"x40," Mixed media on canvas, 2016.
2015. 14"x11.” Mixed media on canvas.
2015. 14"x11.” Mixed media on canvas.
2015. 12"x12." Mixed media on canvas.