Thrust Projects is pleased to present darling! what color, an exhibition of work by Matthew Lutz-Kinoy and Sophy Naess . Both artists use color to explore and navigate the boundary between abstraction and figuration, treading the line between an image’s reference to the world external to it and its breakdown into abstraction.

Matthew Lutz-Kinoy’s paintings and sculptures lay bare the process of artistic creation, by emphasizing the physical materials and allowing them to retain the meaning that they have outside the context of the works. Lutz-Kinoy selects his materials for their familiarity and easy legibility, choosing construction paper, for example, for its very specific and recognizable colors. It is through these materials that he references reality; thus, in his works, all retain their integrity and independence.

Sophy Naess describes the creation of an image as an emotional, mnemonic process. Her paintings and collages initially appear as abstract formal exercises in the use of color, but the suggestion of a horizon line or the structure of a bridge renders her works figurative. Formal color exercises that recall ‘op art’-the effects of the juxtapositions of color, for example-find expression in playful representations of objects such as bacon, which is essentially a collection of stripes. Her process of abstraction involves selecting objects whose properties dovetail with the formal properties of the paint that she chooses to explore, thus maintaining an equal emphasis on both figuration and abstraction.

Matthew Lutz-Kinoy received his BFA from Cooper Union in 2007. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His work has been exhibited at Basso, Berlin, Galerie Yukiko Kawase, Paris, Bischoff/Weiss, London, The Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, RKL Gallery, NY, S1 Art Space, NY, and The Cooper Union School of Art, NY.

Sophy Naess received her BFA from Cooper Union in 2004. She has been living and working in Gothenburg, Sweden, since June 2006. Her work has been exhibited at the Railton Collection, NY, Tutti Frutti Miami, FL, Big Love Gallery, Gothenburg, Sweden, Jack the Pelican Presents, NY, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, NY, and The Cooper Union School of Art, NY.