Philip Martin Gallery is delighted to present new works by Katy Cowan and Pamela Jorden. This is the first time the two artists have shown their respective sculptures and paintings together in an exhibition. There will be a reception for the artists Saturday, March 2 from 6-8pm.
A CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE ARTISTS
Katy Cowan to Pamela Jorden (January 7, 2019)
“Two-person exhibition titles are tricky… They seem to be either the names of the artists (which I assume happens moreso when the artists are paired together by the gallery) or a collaborative endeavor (when the artists are actually working together). Our case seems to be a bit in between those two formats - where we have really gorgeous and poetic ties to one another's work, so I think we have the advantage of siding with the poetic (if that's of interest to you of course :)
I spent some time looking at your past titles and noticed how they oscillate from object-ness to places to poetic (and maybe personal?) associations. I thought this was quite cool as I find myself taking on a similar strategy with titling. So, with that in mind, I'm starting the process of brainstorming.
Parallels in our work that really strike me are the ties to the celestial (embodied in painting armatures, portrayals of celestial bodies, and references to motions of time); the ebb and flow of waterways and light (as portrayed through spilling and fading colors, contrasting with sharp cuts of light); and the ever-present object-ness of our works (whether that be calling attention to the hand of the painter, the armature that paint is applied to, or references to tools of work).
So, with those things in mind, I've been thinking of this collapsing, ebbing movement. And the title that I keep getting stuck on (which is a line written in a poem by Scott) is this:
the day in the night
I think I'm stuck on it, because it suggests a poetic movement (poetic as it’s a confusing oscillating movement of time), its links day labor to night labor (which for me are much different sensibilities), and I think it’s a bit vague (which seems appropriate for our combination in this show).”
Pamela Jorden to Katy Cowan (January 8, 2019)
“Thanks for taking a look at my titles. I often settle on them at the last minute, and I do have a few different approaches to them like you mention, often associating place and personal experience. Sometimes they are nicknames that I have for a painting that stick, or even initials of an artist that I am thinking about in relation to the piece. Each one of my paintings has its own character, or set of internal relationships that I work through in the process of making, so the titles relate to those ideas, but I think of them as kind of running alongside the painting rather than defining the painting.
I love your paragraph about parallels in the work re: the celestial, ebbs and flows, waterways and light. Not sure what else to add except YES!! My absolute ideal is to show work alongside sculpture or work that also explores the object through experimentation and process. The physicality of making and the viewer’s interaction with size, scale, position… that whole phenomenological play is happening in our works.
I also think about light, atmosphere, and perception of space in my work. The color fades and bleeds suggest atmospheric space, so there is sometimes pictorial reference to landscape, but the space is often topsy-turvy with multiple horizons, or bending, warping space. Sometimes I think about Alice in Wonderland’s mutable, changeable POVs.
I like the day in the night!!
I like your ideas about oscillating movement and I think the openness is nice with both our works. I wondered about the day and the night but I think in implies all at once rather than either/or. I think the press release could expand on these ideas in a way that makes sense of the title. A lot of what you wrote about above does that. There is also the clarity and straightforward aspect of the materiality in our works, and then the ambiguity of abstraction. So yes a way to talk about that in a title seems great!”
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
Katy Cowan (b. 1982, Lake Geneva, WI) received her BFA from University of Puget Sound in 2004 and her MFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2014. Cowan’s work will be the subject of a solo presentation at the Armory Show in New York, March 7-10. Her work was recently the subject of the solo exhibition, “Reflected-Into- Themselves-Into-Reflected," at the Lynden Sculpture Garden (Milwaukee, WI). Cowan's work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions University of Puget Sound (Tacoma, WA); Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (Madison, WI); Synchrotron Radiation Center: Home of Aladdin, (Stoughton, WI); Poor Farm (Manawa, WI); Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); Green Gallery (Milwaukee, WI); Kate Werble Gallery (New York, NY); Fourteen30 Contemporary (Portland, OR); Poor Farm (Manawa, WI). Cowan's work is in such public and private collections as the Minneapolis Museum of Art (Minneapolis, MN); Lynden Sculpture Garden (Milwaukee, WI); Art in Embassies (Maputo, Mozambique) and Northwestern Mutual Insurance. Her work has been reviewed in Artforum, Los Angeles Times, Architectural Digest, Wallpaper*, Contemporary Art Review.LA, Artnet and other publications. She lives and works in Berkeley, CA.
Pamela Jorden (b. 1969, Knoxville, TN) received her BFA from University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 1992 and her MFA from California Institute of the Arts in 1996. Jorden has had solo exhibitions at Klaus Von Nichtssagend Gallery (New York, NY); Romer Young Gallery (San Francisco, CA); David Patton Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA); and Mason Gross Art Gallery, Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ). Selected group exhibitions include Around Flat, Knockdown Center (Maspeth, NY); NOW-ISM: Abstraction Today at the Pizzuti Collection (Columbus, Ohio); Alice Konitz, Pamela Jorden, Jeff Ono at Samuel Freeman Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); Forms of Abstraction at the Irvine Fine Arts Center (Irvine, CA). Her work has been reviewed in numerous print and online publications including Art Forum, Art in America, ArtNews, and ArtPractical. A monograph, Pamela Jorden 2004-2014, with an essay by Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer and a conversation with Kaveri Nair and Alice Könitz has been released through Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery and Black Dog Publishing. She lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Philip Martin Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11am-6pm and by appointment. For further information and images please contact the gallery at 310-559-0100 or info@philipmartingallery.com.
Philip Martin Gallery
2712 S. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034
+310-559-0100
info@philipmartingallery.com
