Colección: Glaze Words, Selected by Skye Gilkerson (online exhibition)

About the Exhibition

The paintings, ceramics, and works on paper in this exhibition contain references to language through the inclusion of lists, taxonomies, and data visualization, or simply letterforms.

Lists become poems in the work of Sara Malpass, whose circular ceramic tile features the words None, Loyal, and Glory, floating around an evocative grouping of text that includes Vision Blink. In an artist book by Malpass, the serendipitous pairing of words creates phrases like “matchy small,” “sand-house going,” and “please what.” 

With some pieces, text becomes abstract mark-making, as in the works on paper by Donald Walker and Luis Estrada. For others, text is a focal point, as in the gentle mixed media work by Mireya Betances, which seems to whisper “kiss me.”

About the Selector

Skye Gilkerson creates poignant conceptual projects across a range of media. With a sense of wonder, tenderness, and humor, her work encourages a contemplation of the tension between time and timelessness, place and placelessness, and the human and universal scale. Gilkerson’s work has been shown internationally and across the United States at the Contemporary Museum of Baltimore, Transmitter Gallery in Brooklyn, and FLAG Foundation in New York. Gilkerson’s solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art was named one of the “Top Ten Art Shows of the Year,” and she was awarded a Chenven Foundation Grant, a Smack Mellon Studio Fellowship, and numerous artist residencies including La Napoule Art Foundation in La Napoule, France, and Tilleard Projects on Lamu Island, Kenya.