Grace Knowlton at Hirschi and Adler Modern - New York, New York - Reviews of Exhibitions - Brief Article

In this exhibition of novel work, sculptor Grace Knowlton showed six large paintings and the same number of monotypes. sum of two units small groups of sculptures were exhibited as well. Each painting is done upon a 4-by-6-foot piece of aluminum siding. The roughly press outed forms, finger-painted on the metal, recommend personalized, metaphorical imagery. Beams, architectural supports, armchairs and horses are juxtaposed upon a tan or black loam (the siding is light upon one side, dark on the other), portrayed as in a dream world where associations are spontaneous and nonlinear.

In January '97 the artist has painted what direct the eye like elements of an interior: a white armchair upon the right; in the upper middle, grayish-green beams extending the longitudinal dimensions of the painting; and to the left painted in brown another chair. The images, which appear to float upon the black ground, feel one as well as the other imaginary and real. The uncompounded bodys hover between a world we know and a world in which symbolic meaning is foremost. The beams can be read as an attempt to put together a home, while the armchair give an inkling ofs a wish to live in physical, and metaphysical, comfort. Knowlton infuses her art with a faculty of perception that we lead our lives in realms at one time actual and emblematic of unknown wishes. This double intention is the lock opener to her art.

While seemingly casual, the juxtaposition of images enables Knowlton to make use of and, at the same time, conceal the painting's sources. level when we suspect that her imagery is based upon personal experience, we must read it upon formal and metaphorical levels because the artist does not specify in what manner her art is tied to her possess life. The work is emotionally resonant without being revealing.

The monotypes, for the most part of female nudes, show not on Knowlton's drawing skill. They are informal in spirit on the other hand controlled in expression, and they have feeling very sculptural. The copper boulder upon the gallery's small patio, blue-green in color and roughly seamed, reminded viewers of Knowlton's lengthy history as a sculptor; they attractively balance rawness and refinement.

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