Mitchell-Innes & Nash

Stephen Sollins · February 10 - March 20, 2004

1018 Madison Avenue
February 10 - March 20, 2004

Press Release

January 12, 2004 – Mitchell-Innes & Nash will present an exhibition of new work by contemporary artist Stephen Sollins from February 10 through March 20, 2004. Entitled Home Sweet Home, the exhibition will include 10 works from the new Elegy series, a series of stitched works Sollins began in 2002. This exhibition will be the second solo show for Sollins at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, the artist’s New York representative.

In the Elegy series, Sollins examines the artistic process by deconstructing found vintage embroideries. The artist transforms these second-hand linens – bedspreads, tablecloths and napkins stitched with banal patterns of flowers and iconic domestic scenes – into abstract, geometric patterns on a white ground. The finished works contrast the sentimentality of “craft-based” embroidery with the rigid methodology of modernism.

To create these works, Sollins counts the exact number of cross-stitches made in each color on the original embroidery. He then removes the thread and re-configures the stitches into perfect squares. The finished piece displays both the artist’s geometric pattern and the embedded memory of the original image. The viewer, therefore, must confront the "ghost" of the original work, destroyed by the artist to create the new work.

The end result is both an homage to the memory of the original and an articulation of something completely new," said Sollins about the series.

In their exploration of representation and silence, presence and absence, the Elegy works show a progression from two of the artist’s previously exhibited bodies of work: the Mutes (clear resin sculptures cast from trumpet and trombone mutes) and the Covers (works on Mylar created by marking the whole- and half-rests from the sheet music of 20th-century American standards).

Stephen Sollins has exhibited at many museums and galleries nationwide, including The Drawing Center, New York; the Southeast Museum of Photography in Daytona Beach, Florida; and the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC. He will be included in Open House at the Brooklyn Museum of Art this April. The recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in 2001, Sollins lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

Gallery hours are 10:00am to 5:00pm, Tuesday through Saturday. An opening reception will take place at the gallery on February 10, from 6 to 8 pm. Mitchell-Innes & Nash is located at 1018 Madison Avenue, between 78th and 79th Streets.

To preview the exhibition or for further information, please visit the gallery website at www.miandn.com or contact Robert Grosman at the gallery at (212) 744-7400.

Please direct media inquiries to Stacy Bolton Communications:
Tel: (212) 721-5350 Fax: (212) 721-0780 Email: Mamie@StacyBolton.com.

Exhibition Images

Sorcière
1954
Cork root and stones
Height: 6 3/4 in. 17.1 cm.


MARTHA ROSLER
"If It's Too Bad to Be True, It Could Be DISINFORMATION" 1985
Installation with videotape and 10 photostats
Variable dimensions


MARTHA ROSLER
"If It's Too Bad to Be True, It Could Be DISINFORMATION" 1985
Installation with videotape and 10 photostats
Variable dimensions


PAUL WINSTANLEY
"Veil 17" 2007
Oil on linen
86 5/8 by 81 7/8 in. 220 by 208 cm


DAVID GODBOLD
"Onwards silver" 2006
Ink, pencil and computer print out on tracing paper, laid over found image
11 3/16 by 8 1/4 in. 28.4 by 21 cm


ANTHONY CARO
"Kettle Drum" 2006
Steel and cast iron, galvanized and painted
77 by 87 by 53 in. 195.6 by 221 by 134.6 cm