April 20 - June 18, 2022
From Site 131:
“Two surprising talents share SITE131’s stage: artist Harriet Korman, long-time abstract painter from New York, and Ronald Llewellyn Jones, young self-taught Texas sculptor, fill the gallery’s large open walls and airy space with imposing artworks. These artists have been exploring their constructs in totally independent ways: Painting for over 50 years, Korman re-invents her ‘style’ each time she initiates a new cycle of work, always searching for new possibilities inherent in the process of painting. Showing concurrently, an engaging emerging talent, Mr Jones has found a unique, singular way to express himself by creating novel constructions.
Enter SITE131 and you are met by vibrantly colored geometric abstractions. Labeled as American Post-painterly Abstraction, Harriet Korman’s artwork experiments with simplicity, lively color, loose grids, and interlocking geometry. She finds freedom in fixed, simple formats. Nationally known art critic Roberta Smith wrote, “Her compositions attest to inexhaustible color and geometry. And according to Hyperallergic magazine critic John Yau, Harriet Korman is “one of New York’s purest abstract painters.” Yau calls her work “completely flat, chromatically vibrant, always vivid and unpredictable…abstract painting is unmistakably hers.” When Korman initiates a new series, she draws to find a form that captivates her. The drawings, also on view, are just as important to her as the paintings—they generate the very structure that allows for her work.
Color meets three-dimensional line in the gallery space. As Korman’s counterpart in the exhibition, Ronald Llewellyn Jones’ linear sculptures are a delightful contrast to the dramatically colored painting and drawings. Jones was introduced to fiber as a medium during a collaborative art-making experience, which coincided with a period of homelessness. His first installation, titled Apology, was created as an expression of gratitude for the artist whose art introduced him to the medium. During the eight years of his exploration of fiber work, it has become a vital and vibrant source of his way of creating art. His sculptures have come to intimate the disparities of access by redefining and reinventing everyday spaces with unexpected encounters.
In Exploring Constructs, the highly charged abstraction pairing a painter and a sculptor speaks to the Dallas aesthetic as the concept for the exhibition. SITE131 thanks New York’s Thomas Erben gallery and Houston’s Hooks-Epstein Galleries, and artists Harriet Korman and Ronald Llewellyn Jones, for sharing their artistic inventions that will inspire the North Texas community. Additional special thanks go to SITE131 Foundation for its pivotal support of adventurous exhibitions of new art.
SITE131 appears at 131 Payne Street, Dallas, TX 75207, in Dallas’ Design District, is free and open to the public; Fridays, noon to 5pm, and by appointment. Contact [email protected] for special tours and arrangements.”
Reception: April 20, 2022 | 5–8 pm
Closing: June 18, 2022 | 1–3 pm
Grand Finale event
131 Payne St.
Dallas, 75207 Texas
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