VCUarts The Anderson, in collaboration with the Painting + Printmaking department, is pleased to present Trellis, an exhibition of new works by Lauren Clay, on view Friday, October 2nd through Wednesday, October 28th. Gallery hours are 12-6pm T-F and 12-5pm Saturday. Physical distancing and face masks are required. A reception is scheduled for 4-7pm on Friday, October 2nd.
In Trellis, Clay—a VCUarts Painting + Printmaking alumni—continues her investigation into the psychology of architecture, color and space. Immersive, wall-sized murals suggest an ancient, monochromatic colonnade. These murals are punctuated by colorful, sculptural wall works which echo and foreshorten the depicted architecture and complicate the perception of space, both real and illusory, within the room.
FROM THE ARTIST
“My sculptures and installations exist in a dream-like world, constructed from fragments of the unconscious mind and hallucinatory experiences. Although physically disorienting, an alternate system of orientation emerges from architectural cues, art historical fragments, and embedded symbols of doorways, windows and the implied presence of an unknown other.
This world draws from references as varied as Modernist painting, Italian Baroque architecture, 1970s utopian design and ancient Greek sculpture.
The sculptures are rough, hand-made constructions made from paper pulp, epoxy clay, modeling paste and plaster and finished with oil paint. The relief sculptures fabricate space through forced-perspective carvings of doorways, stairs and windows. Ornate latticework is embedded in narrow windows, while rolling repeating limbs symmetrically twist inward and outward around twin doorways.
The sculptures exist within an installation of digitally printed wallpaper which transforms the room of the gallery into a DeChirico-esque landscape which warps and manipulates the otherwise flat walls.