The Jack Hanley Gallery is pleased to present Dealing kindly with insects in the home, a group exhibition including the work of three artists: Saskia Leek, Thomas Ravens and Sue Tompkins.
New Zealand-based Saskia Leek questions accepted aesthetic tenets with her paintings. Challenging the notion of “good” painting, she works on a small scale on board and uses cheap frames to enhance this raw and humble quality. Inhabited by a quirky cast of humans, birds, fish, horses, and houses, her paintings elicit strong nostalgic responses. The bleached palette she employs recalls the faded colors of memory: pastel yellows, faint blues, washed-out greens, and hazy pinks.
Thomas Ravens paintings, on the other hand, reference Futurist fascination with technology. As if taken from a film still from Blade Runner, these watercolors depict labrynthian highways snaking through modernist skylines.
And finally, from Glasgow, Sue Tompkins’ word works are integrally linked to her performances both individually and in her band, Life Without Buildings. Words line the page vertically, operating visually as well as linguistically, pulling you in to its repetition and syncopation.