ART + Space Summer Exhibition

ART + Space Summer Exhibition, the current show at Project 4, unites the gallery’s exhibition programming with its art consulting service, ART Space.  Sharon Louden, Jeanne Quinn, Foon Sham and Katy Stone’s sculptural works and installations are featured in this exhibition.  These works accentuate the space the artists’ interact with on a daily basis and display their ability to adapt each piece to any site.  In ART + Space Summer Exhibition each artist has created complex structures where their melodic, sculptural forms mingle with the environments they inhabit.

Upon entering Project 4 one is greeted with Katy Stone’s “Wavescape” and “Mirror Fall”. These sculptures are composed of intricately cut pieces of aluminum and are displayed over two walls of the gallery.  The aluminum pieces look like oceanic waves flowing across the main floor of Project 4.  Stone’s forms evoke the harmony found in nature combined with the repetition of man-made fabrication.  “Wavescape”  and “Mirror Fall” also have elements of Chinese paintings, a great influence for Stone’s work.  Foon Sham’s 10-foot wooden sculpture has a similarly complex structure and sits in uncharted territory, on the balcony behind Project 4.  Sham’s sculpture “Curve” is made from pieces of cedar wood that have been stacked on top of each other creating a curved shape reminiscent of an igloo.  Sham created a small opening in “Curve” where a (relatively tiny) person can actually crawl into the sculpture and inhabit it’s space.  Foon Sham’s work reflects his interest in exploring the materiality of wood during his art-making process.

The second floor of Project 4 is inhabited by sculptural installations from Jeanne Quinn and Sharon Louden.  Louden’s “Merge” is conceived of hundreds of rectangular pieces of aluminum that infiltrate the second floor’s back room.  “Merge” illustrates the whimsical and gestural linearity characteristic of Sharon Louden’s work.  The way the light bounces off the aluminum pieces also adds to the physicality of her installation.  In Jeanne Quinn’s “Everything Is Not As It Seems” porcelain, ornamental forms and electrified bulbs hang in a neighboring room and cascade over the balcony overlooking the first floor of Project 4.  The crimson walls make the soft, eggshell white of Quinn’s sculptural installation pop.  Jeanne Quinn strives to create work that is ‘sensually encompassing’ and uses this domestic space as a tribute to the permeating aspect of the decorative arts in daily life.  “Everything Is Not As It Seems” also alludes to the artist’s interest in the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk or ‘the complete work of art’.
It is definitely worth taking a trip to Project 4 to see the complex and visually intricate sculptural works of ART + Space Summer Exhibition. 

ART+Space Summer Exhibition at Project 4 (June 5-July 31), 1353 U Street, NW, Washington, DC  20009, Third Floor, (202) 232-4340, www.project4gallery.com