Curated by Jessica Murray

Andrew Edlin Gallery is pleased to announce Relevé, an exhibition exploring the metaphor of lifting or re-lifting, of being brought out of the ordinary moment to the extraordinary, of moving from an impossible darkness into the light. Curated by Jessica Murray the exhibition will feature works by Fritz Chesnut, Brady Dollarhide, Chris Doyle, Daniel Joglar, Todd Knopke, and Jennifer & Kevin McCoy.

Fritz Chesnut continues his exploration of people in states of ecstasy with a new series of portraits of sitters in the unconscious act of looking at art. Gazing upwards, the models’ wet eyes appear absorbed in consuming large masterpieces. As with many of Chesnut’s other oil paintings, the artist evokes in the viewer the powerful potential for inward movement if we open ourselves to the process of examination, consideration, and transformation.

Chris Doyle will include some of his original watercolor paintings produced for Vault, a permanent installation at the Jackson County Courthouse in Kansas City, MO. Riffing on the traditional courthouse portraits of judges, Doyle expands the subject of the work to include all the courthouse employees from security guards to secretaries, from judges to superintendents. Doyle’s large-scale watercolor portraits float on the vaulted ceiling of the courthouse appearing buoyant and monumental. An homage to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Ceiling, and the Italian mannerist painter Pontormo, Doyle elevates the courthouse employees’ stature by including them all equally and larger than life on the ceiling. Using the metaphor of lifting, Doyle’s work reexamines the tenants of American democracy, the fairness of the judicial system, and even further, the influence of history and politics on art.

Jennifer and Kevin McCoy’s kinetic video sculpture, clouds 4-ufo, presents a group of onlookers watch a UFO hang motionless in the sky while faint desert clouds drift by. Tiny sculptural figures point excitedly at the object, as a video image of the scene is displayed on a small screen. The tender filmic result evokes some of our most basic human concerns about our universe and its boundaries, and exploring new frontiers or discovering new life forms. As with many of McCoys’ works, this sculpture explores how our thoughts, experiences and memories have been shaped by our consumption of cultural genres.

Brady Dollarhide’s new series of acrylic on panel paintings, inspired by a trip to California’s redwood forest, strike a mood of reawakening. Emerging from utter blackness life is given back to dense black-silhouetted woods. Lavender, blue and sage colored light stream between the dark passages permeating the seemingly impenetrable mass of shadowy branches. While composed of a series of abstract and expressionistic gestures, the painting also recalls a photographic moment—captured. Exploring the metaphor of resurrection in nature, Dollarhide connects the intense cycles of nature to a passage from one psychological state to another.

Daniel Joglar creates installations that transform everyday materials such as post-it notes, erasers, rulers and tape into ethereal abstract sculptures. Joglar’s assemblages come together through an intuitive logic of material and visual proximity. He begins by laying out the materials and examining their physical quality and potential for illusion. Rather than working from a preconceived plan he aims to create forms that possess a vexing quality, constantly shifting in meaning from one moment to another. Poetic, humorous, and mysterious, Joglar’s abstraction is nostalgic and optimistic, impossibly simple and unexpectedly complex. For Relevé, Joglar will create a new site-specific work.

Todd Knopke’s fantastical fabric assemblage Ascension creates an elusive but familiar narrative. Purposefully climbing a tree, his figures are hidden amongst a tangle of branches and foliage, their destination or particular goal uncertain. The association of military camouflage further embellishes this tense but lush emotive dream. As with many of Knopke’s works, the artist weaves his contemporary figures with iconic story telling imagery, enacting, in the end, the universal longing for personal place and meaning.