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Location: 62 South Glenwood, Jackson, WY 83001
Opening Reception: Thursday, July 12, 5 to 8pm
Tayloe Piggott Gallery is pleased to present tandem solo shows featuring the works of James Castle
and Susan York. The exhibitions will be on view from July 12 through August 26, 2012 and open with a
reception from 5 to 8 pm on Thursday, July 12 at Tayloe Piggott Gallery. “Primary Forms” explores the
elemental tension Susan York achieves in her graphite sculptures and drawings. Either ingeniously
asymmetrical or perfectly in balance, her work raises questions about the nature of space, and
objects placed within it. At Tayloe Piggott Gallery, the subtle tension York achieves contrasts with the
brooding poetry of James Castle’s constructions and drawings. Having reached harmony through
labor, both artists mesmerize with their mastery of material and form.
Inspired by the expanse of her New Mexico home, artist Susan York makes visceral the experience of
scanning thousands of miles of open territory. A confrontation between the physical and psychic, her
work requires moving through the space she creates to arrive at awareness. Her work is a state of
mind, a quality of breath, a moment in time and space.
York is an alchemist; through graphite drawings and sculptures, she conjures a shifting state, when a
form moves from two dimensions to three, or the reverse. She asks questions and seeks answers
through the meditative nature of her creative process: how can a solid form be dismantled and made
flat? How does a flat shape become sculptural?
Consider Corner Column (left), 2008 a sculpture
originally conceived as part of the large-scale
installation she created for the Lannan Foundation in Sante Fe, NM. The graphite totem hovers inches
above the floor, defying gravity. Slightly asymmetrical, the column stirs a subliminal tension between
the finite object and the space it inhabits.
Her sculptures, cast in graphite, evolve with effort: she spends days polishing surfaces into deep
translucent darkness. A practicing Zen Buddhist, she embraces repetitive action as meditative. “I am
mesmerized by the movement of my body rocking back and forth… Through this process, thinking
becomes impossible… My brain becomes equal to the rest of my body.” Her process pulls her in, “like
the tides of the ocean.” By working the graphite, she articulates change as a formal element, implied,
not stated. “It’s like looking into a pond,” she said. “You see the glassy surface and at the same
moment you see through the water into the depths of the pool.”
To explore forms, York draws assiduously. One sculpture may stem from 100 or more drawings, each an
investigation of symmetry. Sometimes drawings follow sculpture, or they stand separate and distinct.
She approaches paper as a malleable medium, layering graphite, smudging edges, polishing
surfaces. The result consists of shadowed forms, atmospheric and mysterious, yet as much a presence
as their three-dimensional kin.
Her sculptures and drawings evoke a visceral response – a calm askew. “My hope is that the viewer
can taste the calm and sink into the emptiness. At the same time, the works force one into a sublime
tension between the beauty of the present moment in the space and the underlying tension of the
geometry and material.”
For further information regarding the exhibitions and Tayloe Piggott Gallery, please visit us online at
www.tayloepiggottgallery.com or contact us at 307.733.0555 or art@tayloepiggottgallery.com.
www.tayloepiggottgallery.com
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