Animate Matter – Pia Maria Martin, Dona Nelson, Richard Staub, Rose Wylie (Works)

Selected Works

Installation view: Rose Wylie. Installation view: Rose Wylie.
Installation view: Rose Wylie, Dona Nelson. Installation view: Rose Wylie, Dona Nelson.
Installation view: Dona Nelson, Richard Staub, Pia Maria Martin, Richard Staub. Installation view: Dona Nelson, Richard Staub, Pia Maria Martin, Richard Staub.
Installation view: Richard Staub, Dona Nelson, Richard Staub, Rose Wylie. Installation view: Richard Staub, Dona Nelson, Richard Staub, Rose Wylie.
Installation view: Dona Nelson, Richard Staub. Installation view: Dona Nelson, Richard Staub.
Pia Maria Martin: For Olga (still #1), 2009. 16 mm film on DVD, edition of 5 (+1 AP), 8:26 min. Pia Maria Martin: For Olga (still #1), 2009. 16 mm film on DVD, edition of 5 (+1 AP), 8:26 min.
Pia Maria Martin: For Olga (still #2), 2009. 16 mm film on DVD, edition of 5 (+1 AP), 8:26 min. Pia Maria Martin: For Olga (still #2), 2009. 16 mm film on DVD, edition of 5 (+1 AP), 8:26 min.
Pia Maria Martin: For Olga (still #3), 2009. 16 mm film on DVD, edition of 5 (+1 AP), 8:26 min. Pia Maria Martin: For Olga (still #3), 2009. 16 mm film on DVD, edition of 5 (+1 AP), 8:26 min.
Dona Nelson: Morpheus, 2009. Acrylic medium and cloth on canvas, double-sided, 84 x 84 in. (front) Dona Nelson: Morpheus, 2009. Acrylic medium and cloth on canvas, double-sided, 84 x 84 in. (front)
Dona Nelson: Morpheus, 2009. Acrylic medium and cloth on canvas, double-sided, 84 x 84 in. (back) Dona Nelson: Morpheus, 2009. Acrylic medium and cloth on canvas, double-sided, 84 x 84 in. (back)
Dona Nelson: Antiology, 2008. Acrylic and painted card on canvas, 75 x 106 in. Dona Nelson: Antiology, 2008. Acrylic and painted card on canvas, 75 x 106 in.
Dona Nelson: Untitled, 2009. Acrylic medium and cloth on canvas, 79 x 41 in. Dona Nelson: Untitled, 2009. Acrylic medium and cloth
on canvas, 79 x 41 in.
Richard Staub: Quilted Bag, 2007/2009. Mixed media, 12 ft. high, other dimensions variable. Richard Staub: Quilted Bag, 2007/2009. Mixed media, 12 ft. high,
other dimensions variable.
Richard Staub: Large Gathering, 2000. Plastic, yarn and thread, 98 in. height, other dimensions variable. Richard Staub: Large Gathering, 2000. Plastic, yarn and thread,
98 in. height, other dimensions variable.
Richard Staub: Flesh Tones, 1996. Plastic, thread and cloth, 36 x 12 x 9 in. Richard Staub: Flesh Tones, 1996. Plastic, thread and cloth,
36 x 12 x 9 in.
Richard Staub: African Bride, 1996. Plastic, thread, 69 x 18 x 16 in. Richard Staub: African Bride, 1996. Plastic, thread, 69 x 18 x 16 in.
Rose Wylie: PC and Her Mother, 2007. Ink and colored pencil collage on paper, 33 x 23 in. Rose Wylie: PC and Her Mother, 2007. Ink and colored pencil collage
on paper, 33 x 23 in.
Rose Wylie: Waiting About at Bluewater, 2003. Collage, ink, marker and colored pencil on paper, 25 x 89 in. Rose Wylie: Waiting About at Bluewater, 2003. Collage, ink, marker and colored pencil on paper, 25 x 89 in.
Rose Wylie: Looking Round Corners, 2009. Watercolor and collage on paper, 33 x 23 in. Rose Wylie: Looking Round Corners, 2009. Watercolor and collage on
paper, 33 x 23 in.
Rose Wylie: Vivienne (reading), 1995. Charcoal and chalk on paper, 33 x 23 in. Rose Wylie: Vivienne (reading), 1995. Charcoal and chalk on paper, 33 x 23 in.
Rose Wylie: Horse, Pig & Chicken (fairy tale), 2009. Watercolor and collage on paper, 23 x 33 in. Rose Wylie: Horse, Pig & Chicken (fairy tale), 2009. Watercolor and collage on paper, 23 x 33 in.

Pia Maria Martin, Dona Nelson, Richard Staub, Rose Wylie

Animate Matter
February 25 - April 3, 2010

Animate Matter – Pia Maria Martin, Dona Nelson, Richard Staub, Rose Wylie Press Release

Thomas Erben Gallery is pleased to present Animate Matter, an exhibition of works by Pia Maria Martin, Dona Nelson, Richard Staub and Rose Wylie. Although from vastly different generations, all four artists are seemingly entrenched in their chosen medium, animating with their available tools and formal vocabularies the materiality and (art) historical references in order to engage the viewer in ways of looking at what ought to be inanimate objects. One can sense a pleasure for drawn-out process and aesthetic experimentation in the work of the participating artists.

In her stop-motion animation For Olga, Pia Maria Martin brings to life random objects strewn throughout an abandoned office building. Like in her earlier works, the empty rooms, closed off from public view, do not only become the site of production but source of inspiration for a play – a make-believe – taking place on the stage it offers. The eerie, while witty result is a guided tour through animated spaces, infusing the film with a personality rather than a narrative.

Dona Nelson’s paintings, many of which have moved off the wall into the space of the room, possess a similar quality of the animated inanimate object. The images moving across the face (and back) of her paintings – far from being purely material – are charged with imaginative implications that never supercede their factual material reality: the canvas, the paint, the stretcher, the glued cloth and stitched cord. Nelson’s paintings overrule the distinctions implied in the words: imagination / image / materiality.

The works assembled by Richard Staub repurpose the ordinary of everyday life in ways that simultaneously suggest fetish objects, Dior’s New Look, baroque tableaux and memento mori. Suspended from the ceiling or fixed to the wall, these combinations of packing tape, paper, foil, and plastic bags stand in for different pneuma. Their very materiality gives them gravity and evokes states of energy that extend from stasis to an errant dynamism. By gathering, spray painting, compressing and tearing, Staub gives his material an immediate presence, pinning his work to the viewer’s world.

British artist Rose Wylie captures in her drawings our preconceptions of the world by replacing them with childhood-like wonder. These could be hilarious and silly, or anxious and nightmarish – but always subjective, informal and direct. Her quirky drawings are richly associative, mixing numerous different and often clashing source materials that fuse ancient, modern and contemporary references into a bold and gutsy whole.

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