The Shape It Makes is a convergence of delicate cut-out patterns with bold color and gesture that plays with gravity and reflected light. Allie Rex constructs a web of patterns, colors, and shapes on and off of the walls. Informed by gravity, the lines stretch and sag under the weight of paint. The cut-out shapes and colorful undersides create shadows and glowing reflections on the wall.
The Shirley Project Space presents a body of paintings Rex produced in her Gowanus studio juxtaposed with site-specific installations. A web is a drawing suspended in space and for Rex, it can also be a woven structure on which to paint—a linear canvas. The colorful, hand- and laser-cut artworks explore the lines and patterns inspired by webs using mylar, acrylic paint, gouache, colored pencils, and pins.
Rex finds a pleasing tension between the pattern of her cut surfaces and the patterns painted onto them. The Shape It Makes examines the structures of mark-making surfaces and the various ways that marks themselves can be arranged. The individual paintings and installations in the show also reference each other, borrowing patterns and materials from one another, weaving the show itself into a conceptual web. The Shape it Makes is Rex’s first solo exhibition in Brooklyn.
The Shirley Project Space
609 Washington Avenue
Brooklyn NY 11238
