Mel Kendrick

David Nolan Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new and recent works by Mel Kendrick, David Hartt and Wardell Milan. The presentation augments and creates a dialogue between current and forthcoming institutional exhibitions by the artists: a career-spanning traveling survey of Mel Kendrick’s work is currently on view at the Addison Museum of American Art in Andover, MA; Hartt’s work is included in the landmark exhibition Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America at the Museum of Modern Art, NY, and is the subject of a solo exhibition at the Glass House, New Canaan, CT; and Wardell Milan will be the subject of his first museum solo exhibition at the Bronx Museum, opening in June 2021.

Mel Kendrick’s presentation includes recent free-standing and wall-based sculptures made primarily of wood. Kendrick’s continued material ingenuity and formal inventiveness is highlighted in works that celebrate and complicate their own construction and geometric order. Rather than erasing or obscuring the inherent qualities of the medium, Kendrick transforms singular blocks of wood by emphasizing their essence and potential through mark-making, cutting and staining. These dynamic gestures are self-evident and distinctly man-made, provoking one’s investigation into each object’s own construction. These meditations on form, texture, composition and objecthood have guided the artist through his celebrated and distinguished practice. The works on view at the gallery likewise highlight themes and interests the artist has explored throughout his career, which will be explored in greater depth at the Addison Gallery of American Art at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.