Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Jill Sylvia at Eleanor Harwood (SF)

Note: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 6/15/07.

Accounting might seem a dull subject for artwork, but I can think of several artists who have made interesting uses of it. San Francisco artist Jill Sylvia has been making works based on ledger pages, and an excellent array of them is on view at Eleanor Harwood Gallery in San Francisco. Sylvia demonstrates that there’s still juice in the minimalist grid.

Working by hand, with jaw-dropping precision, the artist removes the rectilinear areas of the ledger paper into which numbers would be (or have been) written. Below is a detail of one of the cut pieces (image from the gallery website). Sylvia displays the emptied grids in several ways, including as sculpture. She saves the bits of paper she cuts away and uses those to create mosaic-like collages that also have a grid format.

At the top and below are further examples of the work. The final image is a wall installation (image from the gallery website).



2 comments:

Cally said...

i love her work, may i use your images in my blog? i am planning to do a post on 'white' art soon.

Bob said...

A couple of the images that I used are from the gallery website. You are welcome to use my own photos of Jill Sylvia's work for non-commercial purposes including commentary.