Erin M. Riley & Evan Hecox

ERIN M. RILEY Joshua Liner Gallery presents Darkness Lies Ahead, a solo exhibition of new handwoven tapestries by Brooklyn-based artist Erin M. Riley. This will be the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery and will display the largest work from the artist to date, with tapestries over eight feet wide. When considering tapestries and textile arts, images of pastoral landscapes and decorative designs come to mind. Erin M. Riley sources contemporary imagery from the Internet, exploring the millennial fascination for young women and self-portrait photography, colloquially referred to as “selfies.” Riley explains, “I grew up on the Internet, so for me nudity is very normal… I happened upon a Twitter account that was nothing but images of a girl in her underwear in the bathroom mirror. I was fascinated by the way my generation was searching to connect and remind each other that we exist moment by moment.” Riley’s Nudes 24 depicts a young woman in a fleeting instant capturing an image of her mirrored body with an iPhone. The selfie discloses a fraction of the woman’s external identity and serves as a reminder of the human need to exist and connect. The artist elaborates, “So much of our interactions as young people are spent online. The selfie for me was a reminder that we are flesh.” Early on in her career, Riley received criticism that her work is purely voyeuristic and misogynistic. In an attempt to quell these misconceptions, the artist delved further into her investigation by introducing her own self-portraits. Riley began taking portraits of herself and contacting old boyfriends for photographs she’d sent them while they were together, amassing a supply of imagery of her own body to explore. “In a way, I was allowing [a woman’s] vulnerable moments to stand in for mine so I finally decided to use my body as well… it proved that I was committed and that I was just like these girls,” explains Riley. In contrast to the intimate nude pieces, Riley explores scenes of car accidents and highways with off-road veering skid marks. Collectively known as The History Pieces, the artist notes, “[These works] explore the residue of trauma, the scars that we all have from death, life, and the moments in between.” History 35 reveals a brightly-lit road, the darkness of the night ahead. Swerving tire marks abruptly interrupt the mid-ground, metaphorically signifying the bumps and bruises of life, relationships, and the trauma that accompanies it. Riley further explains, “I am attracted to the skid marks particularly because they are temporary, eventually disappearing… for me, so much of my interactions with men have been turning points, either adding or taking away from my well-being.” The laborious, time-consuming process of weaving allows a chance for meditation and contemplation. The artist reflects on this time as a sort of catharsis. Using a Macomber floor loom, the time spent weaving each piece can take between forty and eighty hours, depending on size. The yarn for Riley’s work is sourced from various discontinued mills around the country. Before a single thread is woven, the artist will wash, strip, and hand dye every string herself. Riley avoids examining her work until its completion, moving directly to the next piece––preventing her from focusing on mistakes within the work and the subsequent disappointment. The artist explains, “Working every single day on a piece, you only see the things you wish you could change. It’s nice to be able to step back and just see it for what it is.” The very nature of the artist's medium makes it nearly impossible to unravel, much like any regret in life––you cannot ask for a do-over. Riley’s dedication to her craft is both analytical and curative, despite the provocative and disastrous nature of the imagery. Born in 1985 in Massachusetts, Erin M. Riley received her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2007 and her MFA from Tyler School of Art in 2009. Riley currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Selected solo exhibitions include: Something Precious, Soze Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2015); The Pain Comes in Waves, OGAARD Gallery, Oakland, CA (2014); and Forgotten in a File, Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2012). Group exhibitions include: December Exhibition at Galerie Wolfsen, Denmark (2014); Summer Mixer at Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, NY (2014); and Fon Seks, University of Illinois Visual Arts Gallery, Springfield, IL (2013). EVAN HECOX Joshua Liner Gallery presents Far, a solo exhibition of new work by Denver-based artist Evan Hecox. This will be the artist’s third showing with the gallery, featuring a series of work on paper, wood panel, and canvas, employing numerous combinations of acrylic paint, ink, gouache, watercolor, and colored pencil. Continuing an exploration and documentation of unfamiliar cities, the artist broadens his horizon in Far, drawing inspiration from trips to New York, the remote Mojave Desert, Santa Fe, Los Angeles, and Tokyo. Experimenting with representational depictions of cityscapes and remote towns paired with abstract geometric forms, Farincorporates a collection of vastly different scenes, unified by Hecox’s attention to detail, and fascination with landscape. Organic line work contrasting with geometric shapes characterizes Hecox’s work. Beginning with reference photographs ranging from digital to medium format film, the artist lays out the groundwork for each piece back in his Denver studio. Initial plans for each work are mapped out by hand in faint pencil, and proceed with a combination of ink, gouache, watercolor, and acrylic paint. Each medium used lends itself to particular details and elements of the work. The smooth geometric shapes and suggestions of urban structures are laid out in opaque layers of gouache, while finer details like power lines, roof tiles, and detritus of the metropolis, or spindly needles of Joshua Trees are recorded in ink, giving the work a sketch-like quality. A backwash of diluted watercolor and acrylic paint adds texture to the scene and the negative space. These various techniques allow the details and subtle qualities of the landscape to shine, simultaneously offering the opportunity for imagination through the artist’s simplified impressions of urban structures. Suggestion in particular plays a prominent role in the artist’s work. Breaking down the building blocks of each setting, Hecox uses his sense of angular shapes to depict forms and structures within the scenes. The artist elaborates, “There has always been a strong sense of geometry and abstraction in my own work, at least in my own mind. In my head I’ve always seen the world as a collage of shape, line, and color.” In one work, Globe LA, Hecox paints an urban scene from Los Angeles depicting the shuttered Globe Theater, and neighboring storefronts. Opaque blocks of concrete grey and steel blue replace storefront roller doors, and a strip of yellow describes the edge of a sidewalk. Pushing further into his interest in geometric structures, Hecox adds an extension to these simplified forms by incorporating an imaginary semi-circle with bands of color radiating above the Globe Theatre sign. In Last Old Thing in Tokyo, a detailed ink sketch of a boarded up Japanese building is surrounded by grey and beige oblongs, sharp edged triangles, and trapeziums. The artist notes, “Instead of just seeking out real places to draw that have a sense of geometry, I’ve taken to integrating a geometric structure within the worlds I’m drawing.” Other works in the exhibition examine geometric forms in more detail, and experiment with typography. Taking inspiration from hand painted signs, Hecox deliberately distorts letterforms and balance to create intriguing compositions. El Barrio Democrat Club, for example, has a Bauhaus typographic quality, with certain letters stretched across the page, drawing the viewer to read and interpret the warped typeface. Other letters are represented by acute angles, circles, and isosceles triangles, and together create abstract imagery. Hecox further explains, “My typographic pieces are about hijacking words to create abstract images, making them deliberately difficult to read, so that the message is secondary to the form.” From run down Japanese buildings to remote desert towns, Hecox creates a dynamic yet harmonious unity between the worlds of abstraction and representation, reality and imagination. Born in 1970, Evan Hecox currently lives and works in Denver, Colorado. Selected solo exhibitions include Dark Island, Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, NY (2012); Borough Lane, Stolen Space, London, (2011); The Last Thousand Years, Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, NY (2009); Full Deck: A Short History of Skate Art, Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek, CA (2009); Los Calles, 4 Walls Fine Art, Austin, TX (2007); and The Art of Evan Hecox, Rocket Gallery, Tokyo (2003). Group exhibitions include Your Favorite Artist’s Favorite Artist, Joshua liner Gallery, New York, NY (2014); Wreck the Walls, Subliminal Projects, Los Angeles (2010); Beautiful Losers: Contemporary Art and Street Culture, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2007); and Colorado Biennial, Aspen Art Museum (2006).

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