Emerging, Submerging, Reemerging : Sheila Hicks, Stéphane Henry, Yasuhisa Kohyama and Robert Storr

 

Each artist is driven by an unquenchable conviction to investigate through direct, physical
engagement with materials. Imagination and the act of making is a way of puzzling things
out. Similar to the vicissitudes of life, each persists and evolves, emerging, submerging, and
reemerging.

The Shigaraki ceramic artist Yasuhisa Kohyama mines clay’s potential. He pulls apart mounds of earth, builds it up, sculpts it, cuts it, incises it, and ultimately fires it. His highly refined approach to creating unglazed, sensual forms is about extending traditions rather than a radical departure. The work’s final transformation is determined by placement of the vessels inside the kiln and the intense heat of the wood-burning process. These elements of chance are collaborators in Kohyama’s perpetual honing of his craft in search for ever more powerful, elegant sculpture.

 

Paintings by Robert Storr are intimate inquiries into shape, color and grid templates. Experimenting with the qualities of different paints, he investigates subtle fluctuations in placement and execution of similar images and layering of blocks of color. Hard-edge boundaries and marks soften into textured, painterly statements with rapid improvisations using looser brushstrokes and fast-drying paint. He chooses not to title his works to avoid influencing the viewer’s perception.

 

Sheila Hicks leverages the inexhaustible possibilities of fiber and color. Her constant explorationswith pliable lines and linear thinking surprise and delight. How do you negotiate and connect lines? Oftentimes, the investigations involve taking the material into space or sculpting soft masses of fiber before it is turned into a linear, weavable element. The seductive physicality and familiarity of humble threads beckon one to get closer much like a welcoming hand.