BIG OPEN EMPTY

LARISSA GOLDSTON GALLERY

MAY 6 — JULY 1, 2011

__________

PRESS RELEASE:

Larissa Goldston Gallery is pleased to present Big Open Empty, the gallery’s third solo exhibition of work by Orly Genger. The exhibition will be on view from May 6 through July 1, 2011. 

Big Open Empty is Genger’s first exhibition dedicated to works on paper. While the creation of drawings and collage has always been essential to her studio practice, the large-scale drawings in this exhibition take on the attributes of the artist’s sculptures. Wrestling with the wall sized sheets of paper in her studio, Genger creates dense, often monochromatic visual fields filled with images of writhing limbs, suggesting not only the physicality of her own herculean efforts but also issues of struggle and dominance.

Genger relates her large-scale sculptures to drawings in space. These immense forms begin with single lengths of rope repeatedly knotted to generate bulk and form. The massive drawings are built up in a similar additive process; layers of linear ink marks suggest depth while embracing the flatness of the pictorial plane.

Appropriating imagery from comic book superheroes, the drawings simultaneously convey a sense of both mischievousness and genuine discord. The titles of the six drawings allude to traditional sources of conflict while embracing the ambiguous and often farcical nature of these issues.

Orly Genger was born in New York City in 1979. She received her BA from Brown University in 2001 and attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002. She has since had solo exhibitions at The Aldrich Contemporary Arts Museum, the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Her work has also been included in exhibitions at MASS MoCA and MCA Denver. Genger has been featured in Sculpture Magazine, Art in America, Modern Painters, ArtNews,The Village Voice, and The New York Times, among others.