Judy Ledgerwood: Refrain

Barbara Davis Gallery is pleased to announce Refrain, a solo-exhibition by Chicago-based artist Judy Ledgerwood, opening Thursday, October 15, with an artist’s reception from 6:30 – 8:30PM. This exhibition is on view October 15 through November 14, 2015.

Judy Ledgerwood’s Refrain is comprised of eight paintings in oil on canvas. A refrain is a regularly recurring phrase or verse at the end of each stanza, division of a poem, song or series of paintings.

This particular refrain is derived from a Malevich grid first presented as Black Square in 1915 and Joseph Albers’ Homage to a Square series of paintings as well as simply the last paintings that can ever be made series of monochrome paintings by Ad Reinhardt.

The grid has come to define abstract painting and in order for Ledgerwood to participate in this discipline the form needs to be more inclusive of difference. The paintings presented in Refrain upend the stability of the aforementioned Modernist grid utilizing diagonal shapes that activate the surface contradicting the stability offered by organizational structures that run parallel to the edge of the canvas support.

The overall shape of these paintings appears to hang giving the impression of something tacked up and provisional like a curtain, quilt or a carpet, aligning with the history of creative work that fulfills a domestic function created by women with a traditional status far below that of paintings executed by male artists.

Color interaction sets the surface in motion inviting an interactive experience between the artwork and the viewer in real time and space.

This is Ledgerwood’s first series of paintings to expand the vocabulary of decorative shapes beyond the familiar quatrefoil shape in response to the material plasticity offered by painting with oil on canvas.

About the artist

Judy Ledgerwood lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. She received her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Her work is represented in public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, among others.

She currently serves as the Director of Graduate Studies in Northwestern’s Art Theory and Practice Department. Ledgerwood is a recipient of The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Award, an Artadia Award, a Tiffany Award in the Visual Arts, a National Endowment for the Arts Award, and an Illinois Art Council Award. Recent projects include an exhibition at the Graham Foundation and Chromatic Patterns for the Smart Museum, a site-specific wall installation for the Smart Museum.

Refrain opens Thursday, October 15, with an artist’s reception from 6:30 – 8:30pm. Artist will be in attendance. This exhibition is on view October 15 through November 14, 2015.

For more information, please contact Barbara Davis Gallery at 713.520.9200 or [email protected].

Pictured:  Judy Ledgerwood, Happiness Bleeds, 2015, Oil on canvas, 90 x 120 inches (detail above, full image below).