It was literally the wreck of jewels and the crash of gems...
Kate Newby and Daniel Rios Rodriguez
June 28-August 17, 2018
@
Nicelle Beauchene Gallery
327 Broome Street
New York, NY 10002
You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. / You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves. / Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. / Meanwhile the world goes on. / Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain / are moving across the landscapes, / over the prairies and the deep trees, / the mountains and the rivers. / Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, / are heading home again. / Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, / the world offers itself to your imagination, / calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - / over and over announcing your place / in the family of things. 1
Nicelle Beauchene Gallery is pleased to announce It was literally the wreck of jewels and the crash of gems..., a two-person exhibition by Kate Newby and Daniel Rios Rodriguez. Exhibiting together for the first time, the artists explore ways their practices intersect and diverge with a shared focus on the fundamental elements of making—movement, repetition, and time—and a reverence for materiality.
Using discarded and organic materials gathered during walks in the San Antonio River Valley where he lives, Rodriguez incorporates shells, feathers, old rope, and scraps of wood into his assemblages. The shaped panels form idiosyncratic mountain ranges and riverbeds, every delicate tableau reflects and refracts the artist’s surroundings.
In each installation, Newby works with space, volume, texture, and materials to explore the limits and nature of sculpture. While using a variety of media, including rope and glass, she develops a link to the every day, the lived in her work—wanting to experience as much as generate experience, to collect and register traces of the passing world.
In It was literally the wreck of jewels and the crash of gems..., Rodriguez uses found materials that have been soaked, sun drenched, and eroded by wind or water. Newby’s interest in nature, especially the weather is critical—as such phenomena must, akin to sculpture, be experienced directly. For the artists, this serves as an attempt to reintegrate their creations into the natural world and to document their visual landscapes. The patina of the sun and rain is a story. The smoothed surface of a stone is a record of time.
Kate Newby (b. 1979, Auckland, New Zealand) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her DocFA and MFA from the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland. Recent solo exhibitions include the The Sunday Painter, London (2018); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2018); Artpace, San Antonio (2017); Cooper Cole, Toronto (2016); and Lulu, Mexico City (2014). Recent group exhibitions include the 21st Biennale of Sydney, Sydney (2018); Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2018); Index - The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm (2017); SculptureCenter, New York (2017); Marianne Boesky, New York (2015); and Arnolfini, Bristol (2014). The artist has undertaken residencies at The Chinati Foundation, TX (2017), Artpace, TX (2017) and Fogo Island (2013).
Daniel Rios Rodriguez (Born in Killeen, TX, 1978) lives and works in San Antonio, TX. He received his MFA from Yale in 2007. His work is currently on view in Right Here, Right Now: San Antonio, curated by Dean Daderko with Patricia Restrepo, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, TX. Recent solo exhibitions include Cooper Cole, Toronto (2017); Lulu, Mexico City (2016); Western Exhibitions, Chicago (2016); McNay Art Museum, San Antonio (2015); White Columns, New York (2011). Recent group exhibitions include Galeria Fortes D’aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo, Brazil (2017), Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles (2016); Martos Gallery, New York (2013); Wilkinson Gallery, London (2015); Roberts & Tilton Gallery, Los Angeles (2015). The artist is a 2013 recipient of a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award.
