Martos Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of Graham Caldwell’s latest installations.

Manipulating glass to the limits of its expandability, Caldwell creates surfaces marked by crumpled and stretched distortions. These agglomerations simultaneously recall stainless steel and shriveled skin, quite an unfamiliar pairing. The spectrum of forms and structures embodies an otherworldliness found in microorganisms or evolutionarily complex sea creatures.

Teetering between playful and sinister, much of Caldwell’s work hinges on the importance of viewer interaction. In one work the convergence of angles toys with the viewer’s understanding of perspective. One’s own image is contorted as if by multiple funhouse mirrors. In another work, planes of iridescent glass are interlocked in an organic, geodesic structure. Seemingly less concerned with the viewer’s presence, this work plays a mise en abyme within its own brightly hued peaks and valleys.

A large free standing sculpture hovers like a forensic reenactment of an explosion. Thousands of shards of glass, each frozen in an outward trajectory, are held in place by an exoskeletal scaffolding. This fleeting moment is captured through an acute awareness of the medium’s physical capabilities, as developed through a rigorous, experimental studio practice.

Caldwell’s installations evoke both a primordial, tectonic Pangea and invasive futuristic megastructures. Each beckons and challenges the viewer to explore its surfaces and its dense layers.

Graham Caldwell (b. Philadelphia 1973) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Recent exhibitions include The 2011 Bridgehampton Biennial organized by Bob Nickas, Martos Gallery, Bridgehampton, Glass in All Senses at the Brattleboro Museum, and The Uncanny Valley, a solo exhibition at G Fine Art in Washington D.C. Caldwell also participated in a two-person exhibition at Martos Gallery in 2010. He is currently working on a large scale installation for the new US Embassy in Kiev.

For further information please contact the gallery at [email protected] or 212-560-0670