Shadows Of The Moonlight

Marysia Gacek

Anna Mikhailovskaia

Tim Wilson

Curated by Jerry Blackman

On view by appointment through February 12.

326 Gallery is pleased to present Shadows of the Moonlight, an exhibition of new painting and sculpture from New York based artists Marysia Gacek, Anna Mikhailovskaia, and Tim Wilson. Each of these artists' work has a unique approach to fundamental artistic tenets. The similarities and coincidences between them provide a fertile ground for the meditation on how disparate sensibilities might ultimately arrive at archetypal constants. Light is a central focus here. Handled as either subject to be considered, material to be reflected, or energy to be absorbed. Within Gacek's melancholic sculptures, matte neoprene fabric not only insulates physically, but also visually, and offers a strong contrast against the glazed ceramic hands that punctuate the pieces. Similarly, there is a formal disconnect between the image of light in Wilson's revisiting of Baroque painter Georges de La Tour's candle paintings, and the palette which borrows from Josef Albers' studies on the optical effects of color. Mikhailovskaia's sculptures play with light as her matte, celestial-like constructions absorb it and emphasize the resultant shadow effects.The hand is a recurring motif as well: either as subject in Wilson's paintings, as prop such as Gacek has used them, or as signature of the artist in the viscerally handmade character of Mikhailovskaia's. Finally, as a type of compass built into the framework of the show, each of these three artists has a specific and pointed relationship to movement and physicality. Wilson's candle paintings establish a rigid x,y scenario in pictorial space where the direction of the candleholder is bifurcated by the verticality of the candle itself. Movement here goes simultaneously upward with the rising of the smoke, laterally with the direction of the hand, and downward with the direction pointed by the candle. Mikhailovskaia provides stoppage and flow of movement through physical space with her screen like sculptures that invite light to not only absorb into them, but also shine through them. Gacek's sculptures are of disillusioned hands with no direction. The thumbs were lost in evolution, they gained arms but cannot grasp.

Light. Hand. Space. But, where one of these artist's approach is more focused on a specific formal trope, the qualities emphasized by the other artists remain present. This conversation between the works describe a landscape rife with the mystery and wonder implicit in process of creating.

Marysia Gacek (b.1986, Nowy Targ, Poland) received her MFA from the Glasgow School of Art, Scotland, and BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Solo shows include: Same Goals, Neoterismoi Toumazou, Nicosia, Cyprus (2015); Pleasant Setting, Glasgow Sculpture Studios, Glasgow, Scotland (2015); My Name is Wendy, Unosolo Project Room, Milan, Italy (2011). Group shows include: BRADLEY XX, Glasgow International, Glasgow, Scotland (2016); í drögum / Prehistoric Loom IV, Akureyri Art Museum, Iceland (2016); Dear Green, ZK/U, the Center for Art and Urbanistics, Berlin, Germany (2014). Marysia Gacek is a co-founder of the publishing imprint MARIA†. editions.

Anna Mikhailovskaia (b. 1982, Kiev, Ukraine) received her MFA in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design, and her BA in sculpture and philosophy from Brandeis University. Her most recent two person exhibition was with John Schacht at Knockdown Center in Maspeth Queens. Selected group shows include Monochromatic at Asya Geisberg Gallery in New York (2016), Unnatural History at Jeffrey Ledger Gallery in New York (2016), and Tropic-Aire Market at Regina Rex in New York (2015).

Tim Wilson (b. 1970, Newport News, Virginia, U.S.A.) received his MFA in painting from Yale University School of Art and his B.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University. Solo exhibitions include Something Rather Than Nothing at Sardine in Brooklyn, New York., PG-13 at Schroeder Romero, New York, NY, and See Me, Feel Me at 31 Grand in Brooklyn, New York. His works in group exhibitions have been presented at Recess, The Ulrich Museum of Art, and Peres Projects among others.