FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Reed Anderson
You Would If You Loved Me
May 26–July 10, 2010
Opening Reception: June 3, 5:00 - 7:30 pm
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 10:30-5:30 PM
Email: info@gregorylindgallery
Gregory Lind Gallery is proud to present a series of new work by Reed Anderson. “You Would If You Loved Me” is the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery and includes works on paper in various dimensions.
Anderson’s multi-layered creations render elements of print-and pattern-making by exploring paper as a medium for creating an image. Through near-obsessive cutting, folding, and printing of the cut portion of the image, Anderson’s precise and meticulous process is one that engages with the concept of hybridity and plays deftly with the tension between order and chaos, intention and accident, fine art and nature. Anderson’s paper cuts obviate predictable forms, and are as much about the creation of imagery from negative space as they are about the novel assemblage of built forms. The resulting works are suggestive of patterns culled from natural forms.
In the eponymous “You Would If You Loved Me,” the collision of an eight-foot circle of floral images negates the piece’s decorative objective, instead achieving an abstract manic transcendence. In “Nuppet Tree,” another wall-size work, raucous bursts of color outstretch, growing from limbs reminiscent of giant tinker toys. While many of Anderson’s images are celebratory in nature, the show includes four pieces in monochromatic grey—“Lochevan Hobo,” “Holiday Valley,” “Chesterfield,” and “Passage Maker”—that all utilize images and tones denoting the passage of seasons and the descent into decay.
Anderson’s use of paper as both tool and image is unique to his work. For this show, these singular, self-contained pieces have begun to spawn offspring that will be shown alongside the originating work. “Various pieces created other pieces within the show …There are bastard cousins and proper relations whose genealogy can be traced throughout the works,” explains Anderson. Relationships between images are created and summarily embraced or forgotten, depending on their proximity to each other.
Given the artist’s background in printmaking, Anderson’s distinctive style embraces silkscreen, collage, and layers of hand-cut holes; in his work, the subtractive process of print production is wedded to the contemplation of light, shadow, and form. Anderson’s forms are like abstract cellular networks that allude to a fecund biological presence interpenetrated by the artist’s hand. A raison d’etre that Anderson refers to as “hyper-craft,” this decidedly contemporary process is one that bespeaks the connection between modern aesthetics, technology, and craft traditions.
Reed Anderson attained a BFA in printmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute, and a recent MFA from Stanford University. He has exhibited throughout the United States and in Europe, and his work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, NY; The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; The Olbricht Collection, Essen, Germany; The Progressive Art Collection, Ohio; The Burchfield-Penny Art Museum, Buffalo, NY; and Altoids Curiously Strong Collection. Anderson has curated various shows, created videos, designed album covers, and studied Butoh in Japan with Min Tanaka. He has been featured in numerous publications including: Cabinet, New York Times, The Village Voice, Time Out NY, Graphic magazine, and Flaunt. Anderson is currently relocating to New York’s Hudson Valley.