PLAZA

ELISE FERGUSON

OPENING RECEPTION:
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21ST
5:00 - 8:00PM

EXHIBITION DATES:
SEPTEMBER 21 - OCTOBER 21, 2023

Romer Young Gallery is pleased to announce its sixth solo exhibition with New York artist Elise Ferguson, Plaza. For this exhibition, Ferguson presents a new series of octagonal, hanging sculptures alongside her distinctive pigmented plaster paintings. There will be an opening reception with the artist on Thursday, September 21st, from 5-8pm.

“I was thinking about a plaza, a center where constant movement is happening. A place about coming to and moving through, where flow and movement define the space…”

Touching upon geometric variations, color theory, active engagement and movement, Ferguson’s exhibition lands somewhere at the intersection of painting, sculpture and performance. Buried in this new body of work is the possibility of the transformational, and the potential for activating neutral form into dynamic form.

Ferguson’s octagons act as metaphors for interconnectedness. Made of watercolor paper and engineered on a spinning armature, the sculptures hang in a cluster at the center of the gallery. Viewers are invited to engage in spinning the sculptures, thus activating them as connectors. Spinning one to the next, the viewer naturally circumambulates, creating a kind of plaza within the gallery where flow, momentum and movement define the space.

While Ferguson’s work is not informed by religion nor does it carry any theological connotations, her intuitive exploration of geometry, architecture, design, and pattern naturally intersects with sacred geometry and the spiritual musings it inspires. The act of moving around Ferguson’s octagonal sculptures is unmistakably reminiscent of the circumambulation around prayer wheels, an integral part of Hindu and Buddhist devotional practice.

For many centuries, geometry, symbolism, and the spiritual were closely bound; studies on this subject are sometimes referred to as philosophical or contemplative geometry. In this field of inquiry, the octagon has been credited as a powerful symbol of infinity, transition, and cosmic order. Symbolically, the octagon was seen as the “intermediary,” the connecting shape between the circle (representing the cosmos) and the square (representing the earth) and it has been used for centuries in the structural domes of churches and temples.

Ferguson’s exploration of passage, movement, and flow is further accentuated through her intuitive use of color, composition, and line. Related yet independent, the works in the gallery form something like a collective. A continuous line meanders throughout the paintings, pulling the eye from one sequence to the next. Variations of optical patterns and color exist as their own communicators, each one exploring a different rhythm, vibration, and temperature.

Elise Ferguson (b.1964 Richmond, VA) earned her MFA from The University of Illinois, Chicago in 1995, and her BFA from The School of Art Institute of Chicago in 1988. Her work has been exhibited extensively nationally and internationally, with recent solo exhibitions at Shrine Gallery, Romer Young Gallery, 57W57 Arts, Halsey Mckay, and Barton College Art Galleries, amongst others. Selected group exhibitions include Massey Klein, Illinois State University, Able Baker Contemporary, Dieu Donné Papermill and Johannes Vogt Gallery, amongst others. Awards and Residencies include the 2018 Dieu Donne Paper Variables Artist, the 2014 Northern Trust Purchase Prize - Expo Chicago, Artist-in-Residence: Illinois State University, SIU-Carbondale, University Museum: Merit Award, MacDowell Colony and the Socrates Sculpture Park Residency. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Artforum, The Wall Street Journal, Contemporary Magazine, Interior Design, Art on Paper, Modern Painters and Art News, amongst others.

For more information, please contact the gallery at info@romeryounggallery.com or 415.550.7483.