| About the Exhibitions
Opening reception: Thursday, June 17, 6 - 8 pm
John J. O'Connor, C'OD(e)R
Fleisher/Ollman is pleased to present drawings, paintings,
collages, and select sculptures by John J. O'Connor.
John J. O'Connor creates works that meander through a complex
course. From a starting point in personal data (the artist's
weight), chance (the roll of a die or winning lottery numbers)
or statistics (the largest peaks and falls in the history
of the U.S. stock market, or results from a Gallup poll concerning
public confidence in the government), O'Connor's works, made
from graphite, colored pencil, paint and found materials,
are composites of quirky decisions, seemingly illogical tangents
and obscure codes that end in a practice that is as much an
homage to visualizing information as it is to pure abstraction.
While giving form to formless information and pattern to seemingly
patternless data, the artist simultaneously gives abstract
mark-making some quantitative and measurable meaning.
Kate Abercrombie, making,
joining and repairing
Also on view will be intimate, patterned goauche paintings
on paper and a wall-sized digital print by Kate Abercrombie.
Often using the basic warp and weft structure of the weaver's
loom as an anchor for her compositions, the artist lays down
repeating geometric shapes to dissolve the rigid axis from
which she works. A reference to printed fabric, the shapes
comply with the patterns beneath while subversively overshadowing
their presence. In select works, quirky imagery, inspired
by Alexander Girard's collection of toys, dolls, and religious
folk art, are formed through slight tonal shifts in color.
In others, the shallow surface remains purely abstract, bringing
to mind the complex pattern repeats made possible by grids
of pixels. Though carefully built upon the organizing principles
of geometry, nothing in Abercrombie's work seems to stay put
for very long; the images and compositions maintain a fluctuating,
fugitive presence, dissolving just as quickly as they appear.
About the Gallery
The Fleisher/Ollman Gallery originally opened in 1952 as the
Janet Fleisher Gallery. One of the first shows was for a self-taught
artist, Samuel Granatt. Between the years of 1952 and 1970,
the gallery exhibited many forms of Folk Art including traditional
and non-traditional American, as well as European naives and
visionaries. In 1970, the gallery began its focus on American
self-taught artists. |
