LZ Project Space is pleased to present Stalemate, work by Emmy Mikelson. This solo exhibition explores repetition as a means of approaching and negotiating a macabre anxiety through sculptures and drawings. The work is built up through layers of repeated gestures, such as casting, tiling, carving, sanding, and slicing. Through their nature, these reiterated acts engender ideas around paranoia, fear, and futility.

Knights’ End has multiple truncated forms lying ineffectually on a playing board whose circular pattern seems to hinder strategy. The drawings in 7 Skull Occlusion, depict a single rotating skull seen from multiple angles with a plane slicing between the upper and lower jaw, cleaving the head. Another sculpture has a densely layered stack balanced on a single beaver skull; its striated construction addresses a sense of gravity as well as psychological weight. All of the work is situated in a moment of impasse where no means of egress can be established, resulting in a sense of struggle within a figurative loop.

Emmy Mikelson is a Brooklyn, NY based artist working in sculpture, drawing and video. She received an MFA from Hunter College, NYC in 2008. She has exhibited work at Jack Tilton Gallery; Gallery Boreas, London; DiVA Fair Miami; Seraphin Gallery, Philadelphia; Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers University; NY Studio Gallery; and selected solo exhibitions include Gallery Boreas, MA and NY Studio Gallery.