NEW YORK, NY.- SUNNY NY is presenting WAVES, a two-venue solo exhibition by Trudy Benson, held concurrently at SUNNY NY and Miles McEnery Gallery. On view at SUNNY NY are new paintings, along with a site-specific wall painting and several works on paper.
Floating, sinking, weaving, and impeding, the varied pictorial elements within Benson’s layered canvases seem to be constantly renegotiating their relative positions- as if to turn away for just a second, one would risk missing out on some of the action. Undulating airbrushed checkerboards and stepped squares set an illusory stage, from which crisply defined patches of thick, brushy color pop forth with optical effect. Goopy lines piped straight from the tube sit upon the surface, acting as interlopers between real and pictorial space. Unfolding across the canvas like a visual scaffold, these marks encourage one’s gaze to grab hold, clamber about, and revel in the details.
Occupying the next room is a site-specific installation, translating the act of looking into a fullscale, physical experience. Positioning intimately scaled framed drawings overtop an expansive wall painting, Benson constructs a reverberating environment of color and geometric patterning. As in her canvases, the presence of the artist’s hand is apparent in every gesture.
The exhibition’s title can be understood as referring to the slow and steady pace at which Benson’s works reveal themselves to the in-person viewer. Observation becomes an exercise in reverse-engineering the artist’s tactical approach, determining each shift in hue and technique in direct response to the prior. That a rippling pattern associated with gameplay grounds many of the compositions is especially fitting, as her constructions playfully dare their audience to decipher them.
Trudy Benson’s inaugural solo exhibition at Miles McEnery Gallery, New York is on view October 21 through November 27, 2021 at 511 West 22nd Street. Recent solo exhibitions include Ceysson & Bénétière, Luxembourg, Paris, and St. Etienne; LOYAL, Stockholm; Team (bungalow), Los Angeles; Lyles & King, New York; Lisa Cooley, New York; Half Gallery, New York; and Ribordy Contemporary, Geneva. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; Sperone Westwater, New York; Saatchi Gallery, London; Centre d'Art Meymac, France; and Museo de los Pintores Oaxaqueños, Oaxaca, MX. Her work has been reviewed in the New York Times, Artforum, ARTnews, and Modern Painters, among others. She is the recipient of awards including the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant (Nominee) and the Painting Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY. Trudy Benson (b. 1985 in Richmond, VA) received her MFA from Pratt Institute, in New York, and her BFA from the Virginia Commonwealth University. Benson lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
