FOLDS

The fold as a visual remnant of action could be termed expressionist, as Jo Sandman’s (Massachusetts) work was in her earlier career. In the early 1970s, after years of working with abstract painting, Jo Sandman made a dramatic shift away from traditional brushes, turning instead to her collection of painter’s linen. She experimented with pressing and creasing the material, initially using a handheld iron. The folds, their density, their frequency, and their pattern tell a narrative of the piece’s development, with a monochromatic visual cadence. 

The development of the fold is theoretically critical to Robert Burnier’s (Chicago) acrylic-on-aluminum wall sculptures, with each piece reflecting his deep engagement with process and transformation. He begins by designing on the computer and then meticulously folds sheet material according to the model, allowing the marks of previous folds to remain visible, emphasizing the process of becoming. 

Samantha Thomas (Texas) explores the interplay of structure, form, and depth through undulating projections, folded junctures, and dynamically interlaced textures. Using raw canvas, thread, and acrylic paint, Thomas creates pieces that are physical, architectural, and sculptural, blurring the boundaries between the optical and the tactile. 

Informed by her background in textile structure, Crystal Gregory's (Kentucky) work challenges traditional material distinctions by incorporating rigid elements such as concrete, metal, and glass, creating an interplay between the pliable and the unyielding. Through this inversion of material expectations, Gregory questions the separation between the collapsible state of textiles and the permanence of architectural forms, suggesting that these opposites are more intertwined than typically assumed. 

As if melting or creasing, Alyson Shotz’s (New York) large-scale sculptures manipulate their own physicality to explore the phenomenological experience of space, light, and gravity. Using materials like plastic, glass, steel, and beads, her works interact with light and shadows, altering the viewer’s perception of both the sculpture and its environment. 

As the pieces call for through their bends, corners, and protrusions, Mie Kongo’s (Chicago) ceramics strive for a unified whole within opposition of material, space, and form. Harmonious, Kongo’s abstract, geometric creations embrace dualities that provoke theoretical questions of structure. 

For Cameron Harvey (Chicago), the midline in the human form is the structure for her large paintings. Using her body parts to physically push paint around the unstretched canvases, pigment fades with randomness and a sense of the organic. Once completed, Harvey drapes/hangs the canvas, reinforcing the relationship between her work and the physical space that supports it. 

With folded forms and three-dimensional appendages, Dan Gunn’s (Connecticut) carved draperies often have a strong sense of compositional intentionality and landscape stylization. Gunn’s work interrogates how the Midwestern artistic identity, often associated with 'folk' traditions like quilting, pottery, and woodworking, serves as a foundation for constructing notions of authenticity tied to region. 

Harmony Hammond (New Mexico), is an early proponent in the feminist art movement, incorporates found and repurposed materials such as rags, straw, burnt wood, and hair into her work. These everyday objects, with historical and cultural associations, are wrapped, ripped, bound, and layered by Hammond at the intersection of social struggle and the postminimal focus on materials and process.

Critical issues often assume an unexpected physical form in Nick Cave's (Chicago) work. The unseen figure runs throughout Cave’s creations, adorned in fabric or beading, lost in texture, or alluded to in empty space. Through the figure’s elusive presence, Cave explores the protection of the body and spirit amidst grave loss and trauma. 

Tim Doud (Washington, DC) works between portraiture and abstraction; through abstraction, he engages deeply with color, line, shape, and composition, reimagining the signifying processes that are inherent in his portraiture. Through the agglomeration of these abstract forms, Doud detaches symbols from their original contexts; by both neutralizing and transforming their cultural significance, he leaves them the possibility of becoming something entirely different. 

As a lover of the natural world, Letha Wilson (New York) brings together photography and sculpture through her innovative "photo extrusions," where she transforms photographic imagery into dynamic forms using steel and concrete. She sees photography as a visual language that demands a unique physical presence to fully come alive, often merging the raw beauty of natural landscapes with the power of movement and force. 

Malick Sidibé (b. 1935, Soloba, Mali; d. 2016, Bamako, Mali), a renowned Malian photographer, began his career by learning to develop and print negatives while working in a photo supply store in Bamako. His work went on to capture the spirit of Mali's independence, documenting the joy, energy, and optimism of youth culture in a newly liberated nation. Through dynamic scenes of celebration and studio portraits that juxtaposed fashionable subjects with bold, patterned backdrops, Sidibé showcased the cultural vibrancy and self-expression flourishing in post-independence Bamako during the 1960s onwards.

Depicting draped, folded, or crumpled materials in interiors, Alexandra Barth’s (New York) paintings exhibit a subtle but poignant visual struggle of the distinction between space and place. Beginning with photography, Barth then begins on a smaller canvas only to create the final layer on a larger canvas. Using airbrush, she accentuates design elements in an interpretive scene, a dynamic interplay of light, shadow, and texture in private interiors. Uninhabited, these images evoke a mysterious past that subtly merges with the sensibility of memory, creating a beautiful dance between the tangible and ephemeral.

Rachael Bos’s (Chicago) portraiture captures the dynamic movement of the athletic body through carefully rendered clothing. Through precise composition and technique in oil painting, she emphasizes the harmony and structure that exists both in nature and the human form.