EXHIBITION IMAGES | WORKS | PRESS RELEASE | ARTIST PAGE
HALSEY MCKAY is pleased to present, V8, Graham Collin’s first solo exhibition with the gallery.Collins’ varied work blends painting, architecture and sculpture into a contradictory amalgam of ruin and stability. Canvases of spray painted monochrome hues are partially obscured behind a scrim of tinted glass and encased in frames made with salvaged wood
The tinted monochromes combine the artist’s appreciation of normative craft forms, specifically woodworking and DIY window tinting, with the canon of abstraction. Collins forces a harmony from the disparate cultural and aesthetic values associated with these different entities.Taking a cue from Frank Stella’s dictum that “what you see is what you see”, the works function at first glance as minimalist forms, yet hold a bevy of specific information right on the surface. The weather-stained wood, the torn window tinting, the color, the shape of the stretcher, the heavy, sharp glass, a section of wall–all serve as a collection of marks that signify different histories. While pocked and torn in places, these planes still shimmer and act as a kind of mirror reflecting their surrounding environment. On closer inspection the viewer’s eyes focus back and forth on the surfaces of the glass, the canvas, the tinting – revealing what we ourselves look like when viewing an artwork.Graham Collins was born in Washington, DC in 1980. He received his BFA from The Corcoran School of Art and an MFA from Bard College. Collins’ artwork routinely incorporates a wide range of disciplines, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, woodworking, and architectural intervention. His work has been featured at Rachel Uffner Gallery, Derek Eller Gallery (NY), The Corcoran Museum (Washington DC), and Tät (Berlin), among others. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn.