Never Work is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by Christian Sampson. Sampson’s elaborate constructions of dyed black and white cords stretched and nailed onto panel reverberate in the gray area between painting and sculpture. The intricate linear organization is both wonky and monumental, interweaving an investigation of illusionism with a poignant sensory experience.

In these architectonic abstractions cords fold and unfold in front of underlying washes of pure color, creating tremors in the perception of materiality. The cords’ variable alignments at once define a spatial awareness while constantly shifting between the positive and negative, the two-dimensional and three-dimensional, the simple pattern and the architecture of the imagination. Sampson’s work aligns itself with both high and low embraces of art and craft – Gothic architecture, Middle Eastern Kilims, the 19th century Arts & Crafts movement and the elusive alchemy of painting.