Rhona Hoffman Gallery

Rhona Hoffman Gallery is pleased to present new work by American artist Carmen McLeod. This will be her first exhibition at the gallery.

McLeod's sculptures and paintings are based on an awareness of material and process that is developed through experimentation and play in her studio. She expands upon the inherent properties of mediums, allowing these properties to direct the formal aspects of her work. Employing the very materials that compose a canvas (cloth, wood, and pigment) within her sculptural constructions and paintings, McLeod acknowledges their self-referentiality.

Drawing inspiration from the works of German artist Rosemarie Trockel (specifically a monochromatic work of knitted wool and wood entitled Black Sea) McLeod began a new series of woven paintings for this exhibition. In works such as Match, 2012, she references the feminist critique by employing weaving, an action often categorized as woman's work, while playing with such serious notions as the monochrome and the artist's gesture. In Heaven Here, 2012, yellow squares simultaneously reference a trompe l'oeil woven surface as well as the tiles of a domestic space. The screen of white and blue-green sky questions not only surface and material, but the pictoral space as a whole.

Carmen McLeod was born in Phoenix, Arizona. She now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.