Blackston is pleased to present The Object is Freedom, Shawn Kuruneru’s first solo exhibition in New York City.

Reverting back to an extremely basic form of drawing - using dot marks that cover entire surfaces - Kuruneru creates poetic abstract pictures with the simplest of means (ink pen, ink paint) to explore the inherent functions of mark making.

For this exhibition Kuruneru creates a site-specific, temporary, large-scale abstract drawing with ink beads distributed over the gallery floor. The ink beads are various small mixed media (couscous, pebbles, clay) painted with India ink. Each bead represents one dot mark and the hardwood floor provides the surface, color and sheen for the drawing.

In the back room of the gallery Kuruneru presents a series of drawings, entitled “Meristems”, in white ink stippled on wood panel.

Also included in the exhibition are two wooden stick wall sculptures – a formal and provocative nod to the temporal facet of the artist’s work and gestures.

In his employment of the mark over varied surfaces – canvas, wood, walls, floors, foam - and choice of materials Kuruneru’s Minimalist practice embraces intuition, impermanence, uncertainty and chance. He explores mark making in a broad context through his choice of surface or medium. Concerned with the idea of origins - in art and self-identity—his work celebrates the essence of gesture in creating work: the potential of reductive forms of accumulated or reworked marks in space and time to allow for quiet, often intimate, interpretation and connection by the viewer.

A catalog has been produced in conjunction with the exhibition, with an essay by Clara Halpern.

Shawn Kuruneru (b. 1984) is from Toronto, Canada and currently lives and works in New York City. He has exhibited at Ribordy Contemporary, Geneva, Switzerland; The Drawing Center, New York, NY; Battat Contemporary, Montreal, Quebec; Art Metropole, Toronto; and Night Gallery, Los Angeles, California. His work has been featured in numerous publications, including Art Forum, Interview Magazine, Domus Magazine and Columbia: Journal of Literature and Art.