Alice Aycock

3rd Floor

The Directors of Marlborough New York are pleased to present a selection of works on paper by Alice Aycock. Featured in the exhibition are several large-scale drawings referencing waves, wind turbulence, turbines, gyroscopes, and vortexes of energy.

Although Aycock is known for her large-scale installations and sculptures, drawing is an essential part of her practice. Her works on paper reference the whimsical and structural forms that she evokes in her sculpture, which include elements of mirage, fantasy, and science. Aycock’s drawings highlight major themes that have governed her artistic practice: the role of architecture as a foundational point of reference, the importance of mechanics and structure, and the drama of nature.

Aycock's works are intriguing because of their resistance to easy explanations. As an art student, Aycock studied under artists who underscored the idea that different ways of composing two-

dimensional space could be aligned with different ways of viewing the world, rather than outlining strict formal techniques. On her own, Aycock learned how to draw plans, elevations, and axonometric, isometric, and oblique views, so that she could create a visual framework for what she wanted to construct: settings for playing out her imagination. The whirling shapes—blades, swirls—in flux, derived from a book entitled “Cook’s Tools,” from All the Wars in the World (Fire): Come and Get Me, present Aycock’s intent to create art as an experience rather than an object. With each drawing, Aycock encourages viewers, as she puts it, to “imagine oneself into another place.”

Alice Aycock has lived in New York City since 1968. She was represented by the John Weber Gallery in New York City from 1976 through 2001 and has exhibited in major museums and galleries nationally as well as in Europe and Japan. Currently she is represented by Marlborough Gallery, New York and Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin. She had her first solo exhibition with Marlborough in the fall of 2017, and subsequently in 2020 and 2021. She has had multiple solo exhibitions with Galerie Thomas Schulte, most recently in 2019. MIT Press published the artist’s first hardcover monograph in 2005, entitled Alice Aycock, Sculpture and Projects, authored by Robert Hobbs.