Topographical Drift at Andrew Rafacz

Artists: Irena Jurek, Melissa Leandro, Erin Jane Nelson, Oren Pinhassi, Chloe Seibert

Exhibition title: Topographical Drift

Curated by: Andrew Rafacz and Nataliya Kotlova

Venue: Andrew Rafacz, Chicago, US

Date: March 17 – April 29, 2017

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Andrew Rafacz, Chicago

Restless from the madness of the day, I keep shifting back to the need for topos. A set of functional possibilities, a guiding logic, the limits of an agreeable theme, an uncompromising distraction. Convention is a word that does not work anymore. Topic feels general and broad, used and reused, never getting resolved for everyone involved. We deserve better.

How can we find solid ground and consistency within unpredictability? Through touch: assuring our primal instincts towards tactility. I find topos restricted to its own limits; why limit possibility in experience? Convention is, indeed, not useful when the limits of experience expand. The need to control is an acknowledgement of being human. It altogether gathers importance and suffocates possibility.

You introduce a very important dilemma. The need for pure possibility versus the innate, perhaps uncontrollable, desire to control, bind, define, or map. The territory does not change until we traverse it. Sometimes our concerns are slow moving, but can still be recorded and documented. That push, past the gesture and into a much more layered, giving space. The graciousness of multitude. The hand left behind for a future interaction.

Gesture has no contract. All movement is gesture; delicate, heavy, and still. Gesture can be freedom, and it can be discipline. I find that slow moving concerns are often giving contrasts to spontaneous movement. The hand finds its needs with the materials in front it. Oscillating between processes, shifting speeds, and letting the hand touch is of outmost importance.

So, we have a desire for freedom that is always and everywhere conditioned by a number of variables? And those variables, which we cannot get away from, keep the topos shifting. What does a topography responding to the world today look like when we’re confronted by ever drifting, incessant flux?

The topography in this scenario is fluid. It’s silicone rather than rock. It’s a material ready to shift and cautious to absorb. This new topos, the new topography, looks outside of convention and responds with strength. It manipulates material, it flirts with many, it deceives gently, it resists tradition.

Our Topographical Drift describes works that exude the possibilities of making, exist outside of convention, and respond to surrounding currents. Adapting by means of studying, these artists investigate materials and process through immediate physical contact. They employ action to build and deconstruct, apply and break rules. Consistently negotiating with impulse and material possibilities, they adapt to new modes of making and new forms. The result is a fluid conversation between content and form that ignores hierarchy: an intentional flux. (AR, NK)

IRENA JUREK (Polish, b.1982) lives and works in New York, NY. She received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Recent solo exhibitions include Teddies, Trenchcoats, and Tiaras, Romeo, New York (2016); Les Cat Women, Zurcher Gallery, Paris, France; and Livin the dream, Cryin on the Inside with Chelsea Seltzer, DCTV, New York (2016). She has an upcoming solo exhibition with David Shelton Gallery, Houston, TX.

MELISSA LEANDRO (American, b.1989) lives and works in Chicago, IL. She received her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and will complete her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2017. Recent group exhibitions include Que Pasa USA, La Esquina Gallery, Kansas City, MO (2016); The Annual, Chicago Artists Coalition, Chicago (2016); and [But] Three’s A Crowd, Efrain Lopez Gallery, Chicago, IL.

ERIN JANE NELSON (American, b. 1989) lives and works in Atlanta, GA. She received her BFA from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. Recent solo exhibitions Dylan, Hester, New York (2015) and Petrichor, Document, Chicago, IL (2015). Group exhibitions include Everyday War, curated by Keith J. Varadi, Ashes/Ashes, Los Angeles (2016); default, curated by Eden Phair, Honor Fraser, Los Angeles; and Ready to Drop, Springsteen, Baltimore, MD.

OREN PINHASSI (Israeli, b.1985) lives and works in New York. He received his MFA from Yale University School of Art and his BEdFA from Hamidrasha School of Art at Beit-Berl College. Recent solo exhibitions include Drip Drop Eyes, Tempo Rubato, New York, NY (2016-2017) and Hanging Gardens, New Capital Projects, Chicago (2016). Group exhibitions include Record Lines This Summer, curated by Eleanor Rines, Magenta Plains Gallery, New York, NY (2016).

CHLOE SEIBERT (American, b. 1989) lives and works in New York, NY. She received her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Recent solo exhibitions include Heretic, Queer Thoughts, New York, NY (2016); Night Cage (with Brian Kokoska), Johannes Vogt Gallery, New York (2015); and Psycho Angel, Courtney Blades, Chicago, IL (2014). Group exhibitions include PRTY PPL, curated by Josh Reames, Circuit 12 Contemporary, Dallas, TX (2015) and Plop Fall the Plums, Bodega, New York, NY (2014).