Recent Drawings
Krista Clark, William Downs, Yanique Norman, & Rocío Rodríguez
Press Release
JUNE 27 - SEPTEMBER 14, 2019
OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, June 27, 2019, 7 - 9 p.m.
Sandler Hudson Gallery is pleased to announce Recent Drawings, a group exhibition in collaboration with represented artists Krista Clark, William Downs, Yanique Norman, and Rocío Rodríguez. Recent Drawings reflects the dynamic dialogue that these artists collectively share when pertaining to their artistic choices and individual manipulation of drawing. From figurative to conceptual, this exhibition spans across several different techniques of mark-making, honing its focus in on commonalities amongst works without neglecting to fully celebrate their distinctions. As a result, Recent Drawings offers a conglomerate structure that tests the boundaries of drawing.
Artists Krista Clark and Rocío Rodríguez possess similar concerns with shape and form in their attempt to navigate a space that is not necessarily fixed. In construction of her visual diary, Rodríguez allows for her forms to first appear as fragmented and reactionary on impulse to the use of a particular color. She effectively reduces her images down to bare essentials in order to offer a parallel avenue of relation to an ever-changing reality. Utilizing the same push and play with visual tensions, Clark employs building materials alongside conventional drawn elements to create collaged drawings and site-specific installations. For Clark, each work is steered by observations of shifting urban landscapes to be broken down and retold through abstraction. Together, Rodríguez and Clark overlap, layer, and stack pieces of their individual compositions, challenging the limitations of drawing so that they may yield a transient space that is open to endless possibility.
In terms of their approach, William Downs and Yanique Norman rely on the figure as foundation; the two equally accomplish a mixture of formal and surreal elements, consequently producing an alternate, subconscious-driven reality where line becomes more infinite than itself. Operating within his own psychology, Downs’ figurative work is driven by characters engaged in a constant state of motion. The dream-like bodies and landscapes that he builds through the layering of lines portray a movement that transcends the human, becomes scenic, and ultimately straddles the line between waking and fantasy. Similarly, Norman implements figural components in illustrating the rough and turbulent emotional landscapes of the black subconscious mind. She introduces the experimental use of collage and gouache that slowly dissipate from drawn bodies, transforming her emotionally charged yet simplistic figures into an abstract hybrid of the mythological and the fantastical. Undoubtedly, the methods both Downs and Norman practice in order to achieve a physical manifestation of thought far surpass conventional applications of the drawn line.
K R I S T A C L A R K (b. Burlington, VT) lives and works in Atlanta, GA. Clark holds a BFA from Atlanta College of Art, an MA from New York University, and an MFA from Georgia State University. She has had solo and group shows in Atlanta, Denver, New York, and Miami. She has an upcoming show at Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia opening June 28, 2019. She is a fellow at the Hambidge Creative Residency Program. Clark’s work is included in the permanent collection of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA. Clark teaches at Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA.
W I L L I A M D O W N S (b. Greenville, SC) lives and works in Atlanta, GA. Downs received his BFA at Atlanta College of Art in Atlanta, GA and his MFA at Mount Royal School of Art at the Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore, MD. He has taught at numerous institutions including Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA; Tulane University in New Orleans, LA; The Cooper Union School of Art in New York, NY; Parsons The New School for Design, New York, NY; and Maryland Institue College of Art in Baltimore, MD. Selected solo exhibitions include E. C. Liná in Los Angeles, CA; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, MO; The Fuel and Lumber Company, Birmingham, AL; Parker Jones Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Slag Gallery, New York, NY; and Artspace, New Haven, CT. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including Black Pulp! which traveled to museums across the country as well as dozens of other group shows in Oakland, CA, New York, NY, Baltimore, MD, Greenville, SC, New Haven, CT, New Orlean, LA, Philadelphia, PA, and Atlanta, GA. He is included in the collections of The Birmingham Museum of Art, The High Museum of Art, and The Smithsonian Museum of Art. William Downs was a recipient of the Artadia Award in 2018.
Y A N I Q U E N O R M A N (b. 1981 Spanish Town, Jamaica) lives and works in Atlanta, GA. Norman received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois and a BFA from Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA. Recent solo and group exhibitions include NADA House (March 2019), Governor's Island, NY; Shebang (March 2019), Columbus State University, Columbus, GA; Visual Thoughts: A Peek Inside Artists’ Sketchbook (2019), Hudgens Center, Duluth, GA; How to be a More Interesting Woman (2019), Gallery 72, Atlanta, GA; See Me Get Fat in your Feral Sun (2018), Howard’s, Athens, GA; Class Pictures (2018), Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw, GA; Low-Residency Thesis Show (2018) Sullivan Galleries, Chicago, IL; Wasting Your Beautiful Mind: Coolidge Antiquitas (2017), Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA; Her work is included in the public collections of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Hammonds House Museum, Atlanta, GA and Clark Atlanta University Art Museum, Atlanta, GA. Norman was awarded the 2018 Susan Antinori Visual Artist Grant.
R O C Í O R O D R Í G U E Z (b. Caibarién, Las Villas, Cuba) lives and works in Atlanta, GA. Rodríguez received her BFA and MFA from the University of Georgia in Athens, GA. Selected solo exhibitions include Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Atlanta, GA; Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, New York, NY; Marfa Contemporary, Marfa, TX; Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, AL; and The Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA. Selected group exhibitions include Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Atlanta, GA; University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA; and National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. Her work is in numerous public and private collections including High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA,; Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, AL; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA; Hartsfield International Airport, Atlanta, GA; Alston and Bird, Atlanta, GA; Cousins Properties, Atlanta, GA; Equifax, Atlanta, GA; and 3M Company, St. Paul, MN. Rodríguez has been a recipient of numerous awards including Anonymous Was A Woman (2018), Resident Artist at Marfa Contemporary (2014), Marfa Texas, Artadia Award (2011), and Southern Regional Visiting Artist Award at the American Acadamy in Rome, AFAAR (1997).