Opening Reception: Thursday, March 17th 6-8PM
Gallery 2
Concurrent with Marc Handleman’s exhibition, Sikkema
Jenkins will present new works by Elizabeth Neel in Gallery
2. In her exhibition entitled Leopard Complex, Neel
continues to extend her recent exploration of relationships
between paintings, images and 3-dimensional objects. Her
manipulation of gesture in the painted mark, the selected
image, and the positioned object, suggest an understanding
of assemblage as both a specific interdisciplinary method
and as a more general cultural practice of collecting forms
regardless of their status as handmade object or repurposed
article. In Neel’s work, the private and the public, the
created and the found coexist in a precarious but dexterous
manifest of control, or impulse management. Visual forms
slide, tumble and pause, reframing one another, creating
generative webs of reference and overlapping contextual
suggestions. She often anchors her practice in the subject
matter of the natural world, using organic systems and
events as points of departure from which to examine the
shifting meanings of ideas in relationship to forms.
The exhibition title, Leopard Complex, is a specific reference
to a group of genetically related fur patterns in horses. The
genes that control these seemingly chaotic spot patterns are
encouraged in certain breeds, but as part of the mutation,
the complex can result in severe abnormalities of the skin
and vision. The spotting complex is named for it’s visual
connection to the camouflaging patterns of a leopard’s coat.
Elizabeth Neel was born in 1975. She received her BA from
Brown University and her MFA from Columbia University.
Her most recent solo exhibition, Stick Season, took place in
2010 at Sculpture Center in Long Island City, NY. Other
recent projects include group exhibitions at Pilar Corrias
Gallery, London; Susanne Vielmetter Projects, Los Angeles;
and The Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, NY.