Right Side Up

September 2014

The Arts Club is delighted to announce Right Side Up, a group exhibition focusing on process-based art in which the chosen medium becomes the central subject of the work. Whether hand-woven, glazed, sewn or built up from industrial materials, the works selected represent a clear focus on construction, engaging their materials in various poetic and imaginative ways. Works by artists Brent Wadden, Isaac Brest, Jack Greer and Nick Mauss are among those on display.

Canadian Brent Wadden hand-picks cast-off yarns from strangers’ unfinished craft projects, often sourcing these from online marketplaces such as eBay and Craigslist. Weaving the yarns together, Wadden creates blanket-like textiles of variant textures. The incongruence of their technical inconsistencies against the strong geometric patterning of the work is intentional, as the artist explains: ‘I hope my paintings create some amount of confusion in the viewer which would lead to a fascination with the process’.

A co-founder of the Still House Group, multi-disciplinary artist Isaac Brest is best known for his photography and installation, and frequently works with industrial materials like sheet rock, sanding tools, plexiglass and plywood. At The Arts Club, he presents abstract paintings in neutral tones using plaster and nails on drywall, panels of plaster pressed between two thick sheets of paper. Drywall is usually hidden from view in the construction of interior walls and ceilings, but Brest works with the material as an aesthetic object.

Jack Greer works with left-over scraps from pieces by other artists working in the Brooklyn studios of the Still House Group, of which he is also a member. Sewing them into his own canvasses, Greer creates delicate, patchwork-like abstract works that directly reference the artistic practices he observes around him. Whereas Wadden utilises the craft materials of unknown provenance, in Greer’s work the collective are an inherent part of the work, as individuals known to the artist who have established artistic careers of their own.

Nick Mauss works across different media, from silkscreens aluminium sheets to glasswork, installation to dance. Running through these different strands of his practice is a careful attention to drawing, which, for him, betrays the sense of process behind an artwork: ‘A drawing rarely seems to be finished, it is a notation of an idea before it is set in place’. At The Arts Club, Mauss presents a selection of delicately coloured ceramic panels.