Katy Schimert
Opening on Friday, April 7, 2006, David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition of sculpture and works on paper by New York artist Katy Schimert. This will be the artist's third solo exhibition at the gallery, and is the culmination of several years of focused studio work. Schimert is known for her work in diverse media–drawing, sculpture and film. This exhibition will include entirely new works, among them large scale drawings, an installation of head and tree forms, a life-size figurative sculpture, and a major new work in bronze.
Katy Schimert uses fragments of personal experience as conceptual impetus; the intersection of the fine and decorative arts is a formal point of departure. Densely layered and vaguely topographical, her drawings suggest sequences of cosmic or otherworldly events populated by ethereal human figures. In her intricate three-dimensional works, the human form is a physical container for encoded thoughts and symbols. Schimert's dynamic surfaces, which continue to unfold after prolonged viewing, are essentially volumetric drawings (she draws and paints on the exteriors of the forms, and cites Greek vase painting as an influence). Fully manipulating and reinventing each surface, Schimert creates what she describes as "space for illusion." The results of this investigation are not only visually compelling, but formally succinct–this allows Schimert's works in various media to meld together as many pieces of a broad, ongoing visual essay.