Newman Popiashvili Gallery is pleased to present the first New York exhibition of Davis, Cherubini. Taylor Davis and Nicole Cherubini, both accomplished sculptors, started their collaboration in 2006. Their first show was a solo booth at Nada in 2007, which led to Davis, Cherubini: In Contention at the MIT List Visual Arts Center in 2009.

Davis, Cherubini’s exhibition for Newman Popiashvili Gallery is named for the chemical element cobalt; Co with atomic number 27. The highly toxic cobalt oxide, ground for use in ceramic glazes and clay bodies, produces a brilliant blue that has been used in arts and industry for centuries. Through the collaborative nature of the project, Davis, Cherubini defy the transformation of a solo artist’s name into a marker of a successful product line.

Davis and Cherubini use different methods of collaboration. For Cobalt, they worked together, from conception to completion, traveling between Boston and New York. Though each brought specific skills and ideas to their process, decisions were mutually made, with neither artist responsible for a specific use of a single material.

The inception of Cobalt began in 2010 in Boston when the artists began rolling out large slabs of raw clay. The shapes – the direct and immediate result of collaborative decisions and actions – led to a new body of slabs that materially incorporated color. Working in RISD’s ceramic studio, Davis, Cherubini milled dried pigments into the body of the clay, color now the substance of form. These then become the framework of the exhibition – incorporating other materials, form and sculptural practices.

Davis, Cherubini will be included in “One is the loneliest number” at the ICA in Philadelphia opening the 21st of April. In 2009, they exhibited at the List Center for Visual Arts at MIT. In May of 2010, “Sleepless” opened at Samson Projects in Boston. Their work has been written about by Linda Norden, Bill Arning, and Kate MacNamara and reviewed in The Boston Globe and numerous blogs.