Opening Reception: Friday, March 9th, 7-9p
On view through April 18th
Panel Discussion Tuesday, April 18th, 7p
Gallery Hours: MWF 1:30-6:30p
Transit: D/N/R at 36th, R at 25th, B37 bus to 3rd Ave/29th St
Participating Artists:
Bonnie Collura, Alex Ebstein, Fabienne Lasserre, Adia Millett
Borderline brings together four artists working in a space Fabienne Lasserre refers to as the “excluded middle.” Bonnie Collura, Alex Ebstein, Fabienne Laserre, and Adia Millett create works that ask us to question the language of abstraction. Classifying them as painters or sculptors is reductive. Their materials and formal choices are purposeful, born of art history and mindful of the histories of feminism and craft. They employ sewn, layered, quilted, and wrapped elements in their anthropomorphic works, allowing the results to exist in-between classically defined categories. More specifically, their confident use of materials such as fabric, yoga mats, vinyl, and steel questions hierarchies assumed by art history, pop culture, and politics, while addressing the contemporary spotlight on gender and power.
Bonnie Collura is known for her multi-dimensional, multi-media sculptures that freeze a collage of references mid-(de)materialization. This exhibition focuses on her most recent textile work that repurposes fabric from prior experimentation to create On Target, an intricate, large-scale quilt draped over a dress form. In her video, Spillover, abstraction and figuration merge.
Alex Ebstein’s recent practice concentrates on the painting and collaging of yoga mats. While her relationship to yoga is fraught with personal struggle, the material is ripe with bodily associations that run the gamut from health and peace to shame and impossible ideals. Playing with the palette and stereotypes of fitness culture, Ebstein is able to discuss imperfection and impermanence.
Fabienne Lasserre’s work is colorful and physical. Larger-than-life paintings and lens-like, vinyl and steel constructions appear to have freed themselves from the wall. They beckon to be examined from all sides and approached as you would another person. While championing ambiguity, the pieces are powerful, poised, and self-aware.
Adia Millett’s quilts speak to the process of deconstructing and rebuilding. She defies the rectilinear, ornamental expectations of traditional quilts in favor of complicated narratives and varied cultural iconography–from African textiles to fabrics taken from her own wardrobe. She constructs, repairs, and memorializes, ultimately asking the viewer to imagine the piece as a person with a story to tell.
Coinciding with the exhibition, Trestle is pleased to host the discussion “Dissolving Borders in the Art World” with The Remix co-founders, Heather Bhandari, Courtney Colman, and Steven Sergiovanni on Tuesday, April 17, at 7pm. Along with audience participants, they will discuss the changes they’ve seen in the art world over the last decade.