DODGE gallery is pleased to present The Thingness of Color, a group exhibition with four artists: Sarah Cain, Franklin Evans, Matthew Rich, Cordy Ryman.

Color is an unfixed property that is influenced by light, context, and the perception of the beholder. The notion that color is something that cannot be proven, given the relativity of its shifting nature, is fascinating. Albers made color live; through simplistic abstractions he impressed upon the viewer the action of color, the vibrations and manifestations of color fields that are activated by a kind of meditative, pointed focus. If color is impacted by context and is itself active, how does it exist as an object, a thing? The Thingness of Color is a bright, playful investigation of the object-hood of color. Each of the artists invited to participate in the exhibition address color as a physical entity, whether literally shaping space with color, or working with color as shape.

Sarah Cain is presenting large-scale works on paper that are populated by color blocks, stripes, and shapes that are defined by color and hold the same presence and boundaries as objects incorporated into the compositions. Franklin Evans is including an installation of colored strips that will visually splice and literally segment a portion of the gallery. Matthew Rich is presenting frameless works of paper, each forming a cohesive yet amorphous abstract shape that has been individuated by color and aligned at the seems. Cordy Ryman is presenting stacked wood objects that have been swathed in color and are both contingent upon and reshaping architectural space.

Working both intuitively and purposefully, these artists employ color to shape and shift space whether on a picture plane, as an object, or in the space between. There is a frank, forthright nature to these works, leaning more towards actuality than perception, but their play with color as a primary subject affords the slippage in between.