ELISE FERGUSON
WORKS ON PAPER SURVEY: 2016 - 2020
OPENING: THURSDAY, JULY 30TH, 2020
EXHIBITION DATES: JULY 30 - SEPTEMBER 12, 2020
Limit everything to the essential, but do not remove the poetry. - Dieter Rams
Romer Young Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of work by Elise Ferguson.
Ferguson presents a selection of 16 works on paper, created between 2016 and 2020. Bright, colorful, and abstract, the works infuse the gallery with energy and allow space for contemplation. Several of the works are pieces that were begun in 2016 and re-addressed this year. Taking earlier unfinished ideas and explorations, Ferguson gives them a second life in this exhibition.
“Color is central in my work,” says Ferguson, “color as communicator, as an associative, subjective thing.” For years the artist has used her works on paper as a color, mark and composition laboratory - loosely sketching color ideas, combinations and compositions, discovering what might translate dynamically into larger scale works. Made on 300lb watercolor paper, they are coated out with the same pigmented plaster that the artist uses in her paintings. Through layering, pencil marks, silk screening techniques and stencils, the works on paper are both a response to existing paintings as well as a discovery method for inspiring new paintings. With a looser and more improvised approach, unexpected compositions come together that merge together the cerebral, the physical and the optical. The end results have the flat, porous surface of a plaster wall with the warmth and beauty of an old fresco.
Elise Ferguson lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She has had recent solo exhibitions with 57 W 57, New York; White Columns, NY; and at Barton College, NC; and Illinois State University, IL. Her works have been included in exhibitions at Luhring Augustine, Team Gallery, Dieu Donne Papermill, The Sculpture Center, Andrew Kreps, CRG Gallery, Longhouse Projects, NY; Fourteen30 Contemporary, Portland; Norwich Gallery, England; Lothringer Dreizen, Munich; among others. She has been awarded several residencies including at MacDowell Colony, Socrates Sculpture Park, Dieu Donne Papermill, and was the 2014 winner of the EXPO Chicago Northern Trust Purchase Prize.