December 16 - February 3, 2024

Reception: December 16, 4 - 6pm

Diane Silver’s work had its first appearance at Craig Krull Gallery in the 2021 group exhibition of nine LA women entitled, of rope and chain her bones are made.

This exhibition brought together work that evidenced the hand through the use of elemental materials, dichotomies of strength and fragility, as well as palpable manifestations of energy. These artists employed tactile and raw materials in repetitive acts and rhythmic processes that resulted in patterned, arterial forms in the tradition of Eva Hesse and Ruth Asawa. Silver presents her latest work in this vein in her new exhibition, Horizontal Shift. Beginning with large sheets of linen, she dyes the material with indigo, creating imperfect, organic flows of blue against areas of untouched natural tones of the fabric. These expansive textiles float on the wall and are knotted and twisted with silver leaf, steel wool, or other fibrous materials sewn into the surfaces. The work is entirely abstract, but horizontal bands of pulled and stitched cloth might suggest the ocean, while the patchy undyed areas appear as clouds and sky. As Silver states, her “repetitive motifs and forms echo the seriality of Minimalism” but, like Hesse, her use of more fluid contours diverge from the hard-edged approach of that genre, aligning more with feminist contexts.

Silver’s exhibition shares our large gallery space with series of small scale, white on white paintings by Brooklyn based artist, Dominic Terlizzi. In this body of work, Terlizzi is a storyteller, baker, gleaner, mold maker, draftsman, tile setter and mosaic artist. Acting as scavenger, the artist titled this series Beachcomber, collecting not only shells, but other simple sundries found around the house such as cookies, crackers, leaves, and coins. He then creates small molds of these objects, casts them in white paint, and assembles these little paint sculptures into collaged assemblages of textural odysseys. Usually the forms represent themselves, but sometimes small bits of plastic or crumbs are shaped into the outlines of migrating birds, or simple faces. Sections of jigsaw puzzle pieces are the purest reminder of the compositional games of construction being mapped out in these complex but playful orchestrations.

Taylor Kibby was also featured in our exhibition, “of rope and chain her bones are made.” Her new exhibition, With As Much Sweetness As I Can Decently Manage, is her first solo show with the gallery. Over the past few years, Kibby has been recognized for her finely crafted, signature ceramic chain sculptures that either drape in sweeping arrangements on the wall or mound themselves in piles on the floor. She reminds us that “no energy is ever created or destroyed, it simply shifts from one form to another.” Kibby allows her clusters of ceramic chains to find their own angle of repose as they snuggle into unique shapes each time they meet they floor, thus promising an entirely new sculpture with each placement. They are meditations on memory, identity and change, the works being both hard and soft, open and closed, known and unknown. In her recent work, she uses traditional western symbols of girlhood such as bows, ribbons and braids that are strung with brilliant blue beads. She states that this work is a navigation of the body and “the expectations and perceived roles that femmes take on in the world.” Her work always highlights labor, process and repetitive acts, often leaving irregularities which, as Kibby concludes, allow her to revel in the beauty of a vision not wholly her own.

Raw Material is a group exhibition of twenty-five esteemed local and international ceramic artists, co-curated by Craig Krull Gallery and Sloan Projects. This exhibition begins with a three-day pop-up filling all three rooms of the gallery, December 8-10. Along with fine art sculptural ceramics, the pop-up will also feature small handmade functional ware, and all works will be available to take home for the holidays. There will be a gallery talk with coffee and donuts on Saturday morning, December 9 at 11am featuring artists Vince Montague, Jorge Jiménez Jr. and moderated by Hannah Sloan. After the pop-up, the ensemble will be consolidated into the gallery’s small exhibition space and continue from December 16-February 3 in conjunction with the exhibitions of Diane Silver, Dominic Terlizzi and Taylor Kibby.