“Dawn Clements: Conditions of Desire,” Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. Through Nov. 12. Opens Friday Oct. 12. Check out James Kalm’s video of the opening.
Dawn Clements talks with Eve Aschheim in The Brooklyn Rail. “When I start out to make a panoramic piece, I often work from left to right. But when a small scrap of a drawing turns into a giant drawing the progress is less linear, a more intuitive process. ‘Untitled (Color Kitchen)’ started with the flowers. Mariah Corrigan cut me these beautiful old roses, which I put in a yellow pitcher. The next day I was all packed up and walking out the door to go to my studio when I saw the roses and thought, ‘Those flowers are going to be gone by tomorrow.’ So I stayed home and painted them just to always remember them. Eventually the drawing grew to include the table, the wall, the curtain, and the next wall….In the Pierogi show, in one big drawing, ‘Movie,’ I reversed the perspective; things appear to get larger as you go back. And also I�m bringing the figure back into some of the work. I�m excited because there are a lot of transitions right now; lots of exploration.” Read more.
In The Village Voice, Jillian Steinhauer reports that Clements’ oversize drawings dominate the room. “Clements has re-created domestic interiors while also skillfully re-creating the inner workings of her own mind. The drawings are marked by her characteristic personalization of physical space�whether that be of her apartment or the rooms inhabited by the characters of old movies�and the results are striking: hallways so intricately detailed that you could get lost in them for days, floral-patterned curtains whose colors leap off the page, tables and chairs with such depth and texture they seem to deliberate their own existence. Clements has scrawled occasional notes or lines of soap-opera dialogue in the margins, only enhancing the overall effect of still lifes that refuse to be still.”
