OVR: Miami Beach 2020

Djurberg and Berg’s collaborative works conjure surreal landscapes that explore the shadows of human subconsciousness. In One Last Trip to the Underworld (Blue and Orange), a whimsical bird sucks on a fantastical flower, sumptuous formations in vivid colors, bringing the artists’ animations to life and into real space.

Jonsi’s decades long practice as an interdisciplinary artist has often incorporated a physically and spiritually transcendent dimension. His wide ranging use of materials - from recordings of his own unique voice, to lighting systems to found objects, from hunting knives to sex toys - subverts standard utility and expectations to explore their potential for sensory stimulation and temporal narratives. In Ambertomb (Tears of the sun), 2020, Jonsi presents sculpture as artifact, relic, and powerful Talisman. A skeletal form is encased in glass resin as if in the midst of metamorphosis or hibernation. The encasement cycles through a sequence of three shades of amber light. The artist describes profound powers imbued into the Ambertomb, offering the artwork as symbol and metaphor for the fragility and complexity of body and mind.

Dana Powell's small-scale oil paintings depict moments of transition and anticipation. They take the shape of night drives, full moons, swimming pools, elevator doors, still lifes with fruit, explosions, and peep holes. Unrelated at first look, these subjects prove malleable apparatus in demonstrating the unsettling power of the ordinary, and emotive potential of small shifts in formal painting strategies. Considered austerity is applied to Powell’s tableaus of the everyday, offering a window to the familiar and its undertow.

Analia Saban dissects and reconfigures traditional notions of painting, often using the medium of paint as the subject itself. Throughout her career, Saban has utilized unconventional methods to explore the art-making process and blur the lines between painting and sculpture, imagery and objecthood. In this work, Saban explores fragility, balance, technique and experimentation of painting, drawing upon its possible functions and tapping into its historical linkages in order to push beyond its perceived boundaries.

In Pleated Ink (Music Synthesizer: Moog Modular, 1963), Saban replicates the buttons and nodes of a synthesizer, creating a laser cut pattern of the machine. After pouring a thick layer of ink onto the pattern, the negative space is filled with pools of ink covering the surface of the wood panel. Using elements and processes that have continued throughout her career - the precision of laser cut paper, ripples created by printers ink, the rigid and mechanical forms of machines - this work brings together essential components of Saban’s practice.

Among the leading German artists of his generation, Thomas Scheibitz has developed his own conceptual language that bridges the realms of figuration and abstraction, at times dissolving them entirely. Drawing from classical painting and architecture, the contemporary urban landscape, and popular culture, Scheibitz deconstructs and recombines signs, images, shapes, and architectural fragments in ways that challenge traditional contexts and interpretations. While centrally concerned with principles of classification and systems of order, the artist’s paintings, sculptures and works on paper resist traditional categorization.

Donald and Palace have both been used as titles for previous works by the artist. Both motifs are composed here in a way that looks reminiscent of a double exposure. Of course an obvious link may be drawn to current day US politics, however this was coincidental. Donald and Palace is currently included in Thomas Scheibitz’s solo exhibition at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York on view through December 18, 2020.

Drawing from traditional sculptural aesthetics and the foundations of minimalism, Lisa Williamson’s practice uses formal qualities of color, materiality and form to create playful and essentialized abstractions. By carefully paring down forms inspired by the figure, architecture or everyday objects — such as swimming pools, barbells or stereos — Williamson brings a sense of joy and boldness to her highly associative works. Together, these objects create the characters of a language, developing and informing a dialogue with one another and the viewer. Often using the scale and proportions of her own body or the surrounding environment, Williamson creates a harmony of muted and electric hues in her work to convey reflections or bring attention to otherwise overlooked areas such as edges or internal cavities. In her Body Board series, the artist animates each human scaled object with its own personality, using shape and texture to embed character. Blurring the lines between painting and sculpture, landscape and portraiture, Williamson’s practice creates a dynamic narrative of physicality, volume and language.