Elizabeth Yamin: Recent Work

Exhibition Dates: October 1, 2007 - October 26, 2007

Reception: Thursday, October 4, 6-8 PM

While some of the work in this show relates directly to my studio location in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, it has all been influenced by the dry docks, the cranes, the river, the tugs and barges that make up the shifting scene. In addition to present day activities in Wallabout Bay, the relics of ship building and repairing on the grandest scale still stand and rust. It is a sculpture park, an encyclopedia of shapes and their combinations. It is a text without a glossary, completely utilitarian to begin with, now fallen into confusion and scattered remnants. Surrounded by objects that have become abstracted from their original context, the abstract artist can explore a landscape in which ideas exist without names.

The curve of a hull, the edge of a superstructure, the angle of a contrail can give rise to complex compositions as well as direct linear statements. The development of the painting, its complications, overlays and entanglements, might be described as a dialogue between the specificity of vision and the abstract quality of perception. In these paintings I have tried to maintain the tension between the multitudinous world of objects and their mental representations, while struggling to achieve a series of temporary resolutions.

In addition to exhibits at The Painting Center and Landmark Gallery, Yamin’s work has been shown at St. John’s University, Haverford and William and Mary Colleges, and at the Greenwich Council for the Arts, CT, and The Brooklyn Museum. She has received an artist’s fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts.