Ratio 3 is pleased to announce Psyche Shade, the gallery’s first solo exhibition of paintings by Amy Feldman. Featuring seven large works on canvas, this exhibition builds on Feldman’s distinctive gray-on-gray abstractions, recognizable for their bold forms, distilled images, and reductive yet impactful vocabulary. This new series of paintings employs the artist’s distinct language while introducing new subtleties in color, texture, and line.
Pairing graphic iconography with a desaturated palette, Feldman’s compositions appear loose and improvised at first glance. On closer examination however, her paintings waver between figure and ground, abstract and concrete, and between levity and intensity. Throughout the exhibition, form is continuously redefined and passed from one work to another. Dark gray areas can be seen as positive signifiers or negative space. Lines slice through certain works, depicting volume and suggesting mass, while in others, line complicates the distinction between figure and ground.
After meticulous preparation of the painting ground, the artist completes each composition in a single session, producing both an image and an unedited record of physical endeavor. This distilled approach to painting addresses pictorial space and the viewer’s physical presence in equal parts. Feldman’s gestural marks readily transform into anthropomorphic shapes and present direct references to the body.
Psyche Shade showcases the combination of earnestness and irony found in Feldman’s work. The exhibition’s title hints at the tongue-in-cheek humor of its pictures, as well as the artist’s interest in a collective confusion of myth and psychology. The title of each painting in the exhibition sets two words against one another, inviting new meanings, and creating an opportunity for discord and humor. Feldman's paintings frequently reflect the attitude of their titles, creating tension between merging and mutating forms. Throughout Psyche Shade, Feldman balances volume with absence, pitting monumental forms against lighthearted gestures.
Amy Feldman (b. 1981), lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. After earning her B.F.A. at the Rhode Island School of Design, Feldman received an M.F.A. in painting from Rutgers University and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2009. Feldman's work has been exhibited at international institutions including the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, St. Étienne, France; Museo Británico Americano, Mexico; and the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany. Feldman is a recent recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. Feldman’s work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and will be on view in an upcoming exhibition there in December 2016.

Opening reception: Friday, September 9, 6 – 8pm

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