Artist: Sterling Lawrence
Exhibition title: Setting Place
Venue: Document, Chicago, US
Date: June 1 – July 7, 2018
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Document, Chicago
DOCUMENT is pleased to present Setting Place, Sterling Lawrence’s second solo exhibition at the gallery. The exhibition will open on Friday, June 1st with a reception from 5pm-8pm and will continue through July 7th.
In the exhibition Setting Space, setting is a space of inquiry mapping place and time. This figurative body of work explores a casted figure’s proportion to functional design, the crafting of a “knock off” through sculpture, and video. Works in Setting Place give preference to setting addressing space and designed objects as container for the body, an object of touch. Reflective surfaces mirror their environment and “grounds” which stake a temporary claim of space to stage setting. Selecting objects which refer to volumes of measure, markers of time, and supports for the body, Lawrence’s alteration of form and material shifts liberate things from concepts that convention has assigned to them. Lawrence’s sculptures present formal elements who often reference a function but stop short of our ability to call upon them through alteration. The result is a sculptural form that in its unique outward form and function sets a huddle for our expectations, leaving the works to balance a line between potential outcomes and labels. Opening temporal possibilities, spatial engagement, inviting the viewer to grapple with the object’s call to the body, Lawrence explores how objects invoke, reproduce, and stage space. Parsing objects wading through time and space Lawrence explores the casted figure’s final exhibition.
Sterling Lawrence (1980, OR,) currently lives and works in Chicago where he received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Lawrence has had solo exhibitions with Devening Projects (2013), Chicago; Tony Wight Gallery (2011), Chicago; and has been included in group exhibitions at DePaul Art Museum (2017), Illinois State Museum (2017), Et al., San Francisco (2016); Scotty Enterprises, Berlin; Soloway, NY (2014); Columbia College, Chicago; Devening Projects, Chicago; and New Capital via Forever and Always, Chicago. Selected Projects include OVERRIDE / a billboard project with Expo Chicago (2016); Edition works for The Society for Contemporary Art Benefit (2014).
Sterling Lawrence, Setting Place, 2018, exhibition view, Document, Chicago
Sterling Lawrence, Setting Place, 2018, exhibition view, Document, Chicago
Sterling Lawrence, Setting Place, 2018, exhibition view, Document, Chicago
Sterling Lawrence, Setting Place, 2018, exhibition view, Document, Chicago
Sterling Lawrence, Sight Lines, 2018, Aluminum and acrylic paint, 48h x 37w x 2d in
Sterling Lawrence, Tracing Idioms Contour, 2018, Natural hair, urethane rubber, cups, mirror, Two 41×72 inches casted urethane blankets and one 5’10” 165 pound urethane body
Sterling Lawrence, Tracing Idioms Contour, 2018, Natural hair, urethane rubber, cups, mirror, Two 41×72 inches casted urethane blankets and one 5’10” 165 pound urethane body
Sterling Lawrence, .25 .50, 2018, Aluminum and frosted acrylic, 24h x 48w x 12 1/2d in
Sterling Lawrence, Chair, 2018, Epoxy and wood, 37h x 36w x 38d in
Sterling Lawrence, Mirror & Groove left & Groove & Mirror right, 2018, Aluminum, acrylic two way mirror, natural gum rubber, 36h x 48w x 2d in
Sterling Lawrence, Pastoral Banquet, 2018, Urethane rubber, Formica, mirror, Dibond, acrylic and aluminum, 80h x 48w x 1/2d in
Sterling Lawrence, Temporary wall structure 1,2,3,4 revision 2, 2018, Two Dibond aluminum double-sided panels, 96 x 48 each panel