Chelsea, New York
Casey Bolding
Pocketknife
Polina Berlin GalleryPolina Berlin Gallery is pleased to present Pocketknife, an exhibition of recent paintings by Casey Bolding. In this new body of work, the artist continues to elaborate on the complex interior and exterior worlds he explores in his practice. Bolding summons memory and personal ephemera as he paints figures that emerge in vast landscapes or intimate interiors. Across paintings, his mark-making has the looseness and immediacy of a day-long outdoor mural or the tenderness of an articulated portrait. Bolding's subjects may shift dramatically in scale, moving through a continuum of time and space. He conjures an indeterminate narrative, the way latent memories surface and coalesce and non sequitur thoughts bubble up before becoming more fully formed in the mind. Only time and entropy remain constant, acting as the poetic register of the resulting compositions. Bolding builds up his surfaces with industrial paint and plaster, later subjecting them to a vigorous process of scraping away, reworking, and reconfiguring. His works are informed by years spent painting and graffiti writing outdoors; in abandoned buildings and decaying freight trains. He excavates imagery on canvas as he would on an empty wall he might happen upon: one that's cracked, sun-bleached, and stained by the elements in a way that seduces. The title of the exhibition references the humble pocketknife. It's a ubiquitous object that alludes to a rite of passage; one that opens up a world of possibilities to its owner. For Bolding, there is a pleasure in using quotidian materials; cheap flat wall paint and the picked-over acidic-hued aerosols. There is a freedom in taking the leftovers and making them work or repurposing the overlooked thing. There is satisfaction in time's ability to change and undo. Casey Bolding (b. 1987, Denver, CO) has lived and worked in Brooklyn, New York since 2013. This is his second solo exhibition at the gallery. His work has been included in group exhibitions at Pond Society, Shanghai, Jack Siebert Projects, Los Angeles, Polina Berlin Gallery, New York, Shoot the Lobster, New York, Mamoth, London, and 1969 Gallery, New York.