Artists: Ella Kruglyanskaya and Matt Paweski
Venue: Lulu, Mexico City
Date: April 13 – June 16, 2018
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Lulu, Mexico City
It might not be the most obvious pairing. Exactly what Ella Krugylanskaya’s loose gestural depictions of voluptuous women have to do with Matt Paweski’s preternaturally precise abstract sculptures may not seem immediately apparent. But consider it. The fleshy rotundity of buttocks and breasts in Krugylanskaya’s rapidly limned sketches vis-à-vis the carefully incised recti- and curvilinearity of Paweski’s metal objects. Behold the tension generated by these two very different forms of making (even though Matt’s sculptures, which start from drawings, contain a decidedly graphic element, while Ella’s bodies wield a marvelously volumetric quality). Curiously, looking at his sculptures– painstaking, box-like, seemingly industrially produced forays into constructivism– against her elaborately dashed off drawings, the sculptures begin to assume a coy corporeal presence. It’s almost as if bodies were nested deep within their curves. Matt does, after all, call his unpainted works– one of which is presented here– nudes. Meanwhile, in contrast to the contours, flaps and folds of his objects, Ella’s bikini-clad, bombshells take on a markedly abstract character. Against his roiling geometry, her anatomies are liable to vacillate between a gorgeous welter of mark making and a collection of circles and fleeing lines. Never mind that both bodies of work visibly push up against boundaries (of the paper, of the sculpture’s limits) artificially imposed on them….
Ella Krugylanskaya (b. Riga, Latvia, 1978) lives and works in New York. A selection of recent solo exhibitions includes: (2016) Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, Sant’Andrea de Scaphis, Rome, Italy; Ella Kruglyanskaya, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, England; travelled to: Tramway, Glasgow, Scotland (2015) Fancy Problems, Thomas Dane Gallery, London, England (2014) Grafika, The Power Station, Dallas TX; How to work together, Studio Voltaire residency and show, London, England; Little Vera, kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, Latvia (with Sanya Kantarovsky). Group exhibitions: (2017) Tainted Love, Confort Moderne, Poitiers, France; The Brask Collection meets Willumsen, J.F. Willumsen Museum, Freferikssund, Denmark; 31 Women, Breese/Little Gallery, London, England (2016) Inside Out, curated by Alexandra Economou, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich, Switzerland; 8 Femmes, Office Baroque, Brussels, Belgium.
Matt Paweski (b. 1980, Detroit, MI) lives and works in Los Angeles. A selection of recent solo exhibitions includes: (2017) Herald St. London, UK (2016) Matt Paweski, Ratio 3, San Francisco, US (2015) New Sculpture, South Willard, Los Angeles, US. Group exhibitions: (2018) A Page From My Intimate Journal (Part I), Gordon Robichaux, New York, US; Softcore, Curated by Matt Paweski, South Willard, Los Angeles, US (2016) Walk Artisinal, Los Angeles, US (2015) Kleenex Rose, Bodega, New York, US; The Curve, Wallspace, New York, US; Matt Paweski and Andrea Sala, Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles, USA.
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Lulu is an independent, Mexico City-based project space founded and run by the artist Martin Soto Climent and the independent curator Chris Sharp.
