North Room: David Kennedy Cutler - Vessels

Derek Eller Gallery is pleased to present a solo show of new work by David Kennedy Cutler in our North Room entitled Vessels. About A continuation of my obsession with converting basic objects of life and labor into still lives that do not sit still, Vessels presents a semi-simple set of containers. From within vases, studio work clothing, and a shipping crate, an abundance of irrationally reaching flower arrangements spring forth. The handful of paintings and single sculpture that occupy Derek Eller Gallery’s intimate North Room are made using inkjet transfer and acrylic paint on canvas, which both conform to and defy their mediums’ trappings. Paintings become sculptures by revealing their innards and breaking their frames, and sculptures are elaborately constructed stretchers over which image-saturated canvas is stretched. The process-drenched works can be referred to as painting and sculpture, but are initiated by strategies derived from photography, printmaking, performance, surveillance and meta-fiction. The exhibition uses the broad definition of the vessel as a container to hold, to embody, to preserve, to sanctify. Wall works depict water-filled vases preserving flowers for the fleeting days before demise, and paint-splattered studio clothing protects the maker from the made. The exhibition’s centerpiece is a sculpture which depicts a vessel intended for movement: a de-commissioned shipping crate that formerly housed a priceless figurative sculpture. Its front and flanks are bisected by cartoonishly large zippers which part to reveal a cage, or stretcher, that supports its painted skin. From the object’s tipped repose bursts a field of active flowers. What starts simple—a photograph of discrete objects on a studio seamless backdrop—transforms through a haptic and hectic process resulting in objects that I feel reflect contemporary consciousness. In this state, the conditions of digital hegemony have eroded an entire value system of labor, linearity and veracity. I insist that my small crop of fleeting possessions live on as a self-replicating hive, with each work converging to form a fleet of drones with a collective endeavor: to recreate a parallel world that goes on and on, untethered from a discernible origination. –David Kennedy Cutler Read more Toggle Sculpture Mixed media Painting