Implements for Deviation

Parent Company is pleased to present Implements for Deviation, a solo exhibition by Dena Paige Fischer. The exhibition presents Fischer's exploration of sculptural objects as functional instruments. Working with industrial materials and the visual language of utility, Fischer constructs tools that simultaneously compel use and resist it, appearing to be purposeful but behaving unexpectedly. The sculptures are built from materials sourced from hardware stores and industrial supply shops: wood, metal, resin, epoxy, sometimes incorporating collected and altered found objects. Each piece bears the physical markers of functionality—brush bristles, handles, and grips—yet their intended use remains ambiguous. In this way, the artist doesn’t only use instruments to create, but rather, Fischer opts to make the instruments themselves, constructing objects that occupy the space between sculpture and implement, between aesthetic object and functional device. Several works are what the artist calls "mark makers," objects engineered to draw, paint, or scratch. Yet unlike traditional tools designed to abbreviate space, time, and effort between user and task, Fischer's pieces are conceived to create distance, to hinder precision, and to resist efficiency. This forced imprecision is central to Fischer's practice. By making the creative process more difficult, these tools generate a looseness, depth, and a quality of mark that proves elusive through conventional means. While the works are largely rooted in the visual language of practicality (each piece looks like a tool meant to solve a problem), they often tend to tip into absurdity, both in practice and in appearance. Their unfamiliar functionality confuses expectation, and Fischer embraces this, infusing each object with a dry humor that undercuts its utilitarian presentation. In Implements for Deviation, Fischer offers objects that stray not only from their expected function but from the very logic of tool-making itself. What emerges is a body of work that questions our assumptions about utility and its true value. Dena Paige Fischer (b. 1987, New York City) is a sculptor living and working in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art (2009). She has had one and two-person exhibitions at New York Arts Program and West Kortright Gallery (2024). Select group exhibitions include Textile Arts Center (2025); The Untitled Space (2025); Tappeto Volante Gallery (2025); Underdonk Gallery (2024); Shelter Gallery (2024); Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation, Ojai, CA (2022); and Collar Works Gallery, Troy, NY (2018). She has been a visiting artist at New York Arts Program, Cooper Union, LIM College, and Hamilton College. Her work has been featured in Art Spiel, The New Yorker, Jersey City Times, and The Untitled Magazine.