Locus of Control

Ruby/Dakota is honored to present Locus of Control, a duo exhibition featuring works by Diane Townsend and her partner, Judah Catalan Fate knocks knees and doors. A subtle explosion, Quiet, field of iridescent lavender, a smattering of toxic pigment. Inhaled. Just enough to wake you up. The natural crook of things. A chance. Diane Townsend has been making pastels as a way to support a life of art and love, since 1971 using a 17th century Italian formula developed by Rosabla Carriera, translated by a studio mate years later, all because she happened upon a dumpster full of pigment, on Mercer and Houston. In 1995, she met Judah Catalan, at an art materials exhibition at Gramercy Park Art Salon. In 2006 Diane finally lost the loft on Broome. A stint in Pennsylvania, because what choice did they have? The two have worked alongside each other since and through. Today, they live and work on opposite sides of a white wall, erected for this purpose, in their airy home in Hudson, NY. Through times of upheaval, we return to the medium of people. Pastels are by nature fragile. Some are softer than others, depending on their supports; clay, time, hand-formed for random distribution. A grit or pumice becomes essential for proper flow. If Diane's abstract, color swathed paintings are solid, sheer, impenetrable, grounded forcesşperhaps her partner Judah Catalan, who shows works beside Diane, his partner of nearly 30 yearsŠ is just the opposite. If Diane's work forms a sturdy foundation, JudahŖs creates a window, or many. Judah Catalan makes cage-like sculptures out of wireŠ or are they drawing in space? Or music? Connected to Calder? Dispersed air. Not a memento mori, but a sign of life, something much softer than how it appears. Rather than an enclosure, we begin to view a contorted chainlink fence as a series of openings. The idea of protection and being protected is a state of mind, in numbers and color, a soothing coupling, pathways are formed, one immediately becomes in conversation with the other, beyond proximity. The narrative distracts and it also roots down, weaves through. Both Diane's paintings and Judah's sculptures utilize hue and tone sneakily, making you wonder if your eyes are playing tricks on you, dancing around shaded knolls, systemic inversion of qualia, different and the same. Where there can be stark contrast between two nearly identical colors. Where perception is equal to a lie. These works together become a closed system. Stillness and dynamism. A world unto themselves, one which protects its own. And the subject of how we arrived at a place, or are beginning again. Locus of Control, a question of whether fate controlled us here, externally, internally, or eternally, a serendipitous event is just that. It's a painting. Or a sculpture. A certain color blindness as much as she couldn't have known what was inside that house. She entered anyway. Blindsight phenomena, a calling for the color blue, skin-based vision. You are Here. Swaddled in a safety of knowing, both what we can see and what we can see through. Judah Catalan studied painting with Franz Bernheimer and attended the School of Visual Arts. He has exhibited at Horace Brookington Gallery, Forum Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, England, the Callicoon Fine Arts, and Hudson Hall. He lives and works in Hudson, New York, alongside his partner, Diane Townsend. Diane Townsend was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. She has a BFA from Indiana University and an MFA from Queens College, City University of New York. She has taught at Brown University, New York Institute of Technology, the Art Institute of Chicago, SUNY Purchase, Parsons School of Design, and Ramapo College. Her work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Prince Street Gallery, The Huntington Museum, the Mercer Gallery, Hudson Hall, among many others. She owns and operates Diane Townsend Artists’ Pastels, which she runs alongside partner Judah Catalan.