What's The Matter

What's The Matter
Group Show: Michele Benoit, Daniel Bruttig, Laura Kaufman, Richard Roth
March 31 - April 22, 2018
Opening: March 31, 5- 7PM

Marquee Projects is proud to present 'What's The Matter', a group exhibition featuring recent works by Laura Kaufmann, Daniel Bruttig, Michelle Benoit and Richard Roth.

The artists brought together in this show curated by Mark Van Wagner all share an interest in using unconventional materials and ways of formatting. Their works are process based, yet concerned with formal abstraction, and often oscillate between different mediums such as sculpture and painting, denying any clear categorization.

Laura Kaufman bases her work on notions of language and geometric abstraction, building as well as undermining an existing system of shapes, words, and numbers. In her drawings and sculptural work she uses materials such as industrial felt, steel, linen and cotton and applies traditional artisanal techniques such as joining, embroidering, weaving and folding to create works that are often highly tactile, looking both familiar and strange at the same time.

Daniel Bruttig deliberately uses a wide range of styles and mediums, dispelling the notion of a singular artistic mode of production. His work includes drawings as well as objects which he creates by pouring, smothering, submerging, wrapping, connecting, stacking, and layering materials such as polymer, thermoplastic adhesive, resin, wax, found objects, wood, and fabrics - and the so-called "Bound Paintings" which are made by using a plenitude of colorful lanyards, transforming them into an abstract painting.

Michelle Benoit has created a current body of work, aptly called "Painting Objects," which also resists being categorized into a specific medium. Her compositions apply a sculptural process to create painting-like objects. Mostly recycled and reclaimed materials - such as wood, Lucite, paints, and mixed media - are cut, assembled, stacked, adhered, and re-cut, and added on top of a flat surface. Coalescing into layers of transparency this work unveils the process and depth and starts an interaction with surrounding light.

Richard Roth makes works that could be described as 3-D paintings. His small box-like objects made of plywood resemble a minimal sculpture, lend their planes as a surface for paintings, challenging the traditional notion of a painted canvas. The geometric patterns and colorful blocks of these abstract, geometric, nearly- minimal compositions leave a -sleight of hand - visible, reminicent of sources such as Navajo blankets, mollusk shells, or licorice candies.