Opening, Saturday, October 17th, 6-9, Alvarez Gallery, 96 Bedford Street, Stamford, CT 06901
In Measured Line
Shelby Head's Innovative Minimalism at Fernando Luis Alvarez Gallery
STAMFORD, CT -- Fernando Luis Alvarez Gallery is proud to announce new gallery artist Shelby Head's solo exhibition, In Measured Line.
In Measured Line is a series of work that has been conceived and created over the past four years. Head is influenced predominantly by the practicalities of minimalism as integrated with elements of light and architecture and balanced by her chosen medium: paper.
For the exhibition, the artist has reproduced the essence of architecture by reducing line and space to its simplest form. Using versatile, flexible, and ordinary paper as material throughout the series, intentionally necessitates the works' medium (noun) to become an action (verb): to paper over, to patch up, or to conceal.
The surface of Head's work is covered with a variety of off-white paper, creating a quiet contrast between shapes. The fragility and vulnerability of paper allows for chance to contribute to the overall surface composition; when the surface is damaged in the art-making process, an accidental mark is then covered up with a strip of paper, a pucker is cut out and resurfaced with a swatch, and a patch is added to counterbalance the cover up. These external forces of chance and circumstance allow for fresh discovery within each new composition.
LED lights are embedded behind the surface of each piece, and partially illuminate the space inside through a variety of breaks on the surface. These openings give a glimpse into a private and mostly hidden inner landscape. Light and, at times, material escape onto the two-dimensional surface, creating a dialogue between the flat plane and sculpture.
The more architectural components of the collection were, in part, inspired by the architecture in and around the Yale Art Gallery in New Haven, CT, close to the artist's home. This component does not necessarily ground the collection in a particular place, but rather it offers a contribution to historical reference in architecture and provides insight into the very material nature of construction.
In Measured Line invites the viewer to question the relationship between architecture and minimal abstraction, chance and intention in composition, interior and exterior space, two-dimensional art and sculpture, and the use of light as an element in art.