Jane Lombard Gallery
“For what you collect is always yourself” – Jean Baudrillard
Jane Lombard Gallery is pleased to present It makes it more so if you say so, Carmen Neely’s first solo show in New York. The exhibition will feature a series of recent paintings, drawings, and mixed media sculpture that continue Neely’s exploration of gesture as object.
Neely’s work—a combination of painting and found objects—is imbued with deep intention and awareness of her identity as a young black woman making art in the twenty-first century. “The mark”, revered and mythologized as the purest form of artistic intention in the art historical canon, becomes an act of subtle subversion in Neely’s paintings. Her own sexuality and female body appropriate the traditionally masculine gesture, and turns painting into an act of femininity. With each brushstroke, she pushes back against the status quo, inserting herself into a larger dialogue about signification in contemporary abstract painting.
In an effort to retain memories, events, conversations and people, Neely hoards objects as souvenirs. Paintings and drawings serve as means of ‘visual paraphrasing’, where a personal language of gestures and symbols embodies a distinct previous experience. These narratives undergo material translations – a painterly stroke becomes a three-dimensional clay form, then a flattened photographic image or laser-cut plexiglass shape – evolving the gesture into a tangible object to be collected.
it makes it more so if you say so
Things have happened
Once again, it has been a while since I've updated here.. But things have happened that are certainly worth mentioning. Earlier this year I had the pleasure of meeting Cey Adams in NYC in a very serendipitous fashion, and just participated in his summer show at Jane Lombard Gallery in Chelsea.
It opened on June 29 and will be up until August 12! There are some wonderful artists involved, and I'm so glad I got the opportunity to show with them in this beautiful space.
Plus.. my parents came!
Also, Last week (6/11 - 6/17) I got to collaborate for the first time with Richelle Soper at a new space in Greensboro, NC. It was a week long pop up residency at Greensboro Project Space, where we created new work in the space, set up the show on Saturday, and dismantled everything on Sunday evening. That week was a whirlwind but definitely worth it. It sparked so many ideas for future projects. More collaborations to come ************
