MAKING ENDS MEET
vera boele-keimer
PRESS RELEASE
Vera Boele-Keimer
Making Ends Meet
April 9 – May 8, 2015
Opening reception: April 9, 6-8pm
David Krut Projects and Jessica Carlisle are delighted to present Making Ends Meet, an exhibition by UK-based artist Vera Boele-Keimer.
The title is apt. Firstly, it implies economy, something which is evident in Boele-Keimer’s work not only in its apparent simplicity but also in the materials she uses, ranging from book cloth and cardboard to discarded wooden wedges and recycled plastic netting. Yet it also surmises the artist’s whole modus operandi: her search for order, rhythm and symmetry often manifests, quite literally, in making the ends of lines meet. The pun is characteristic of her practice, where an improvised approach to making sees her drawn to positions that bring “high art” down into a more playful and failure-prone arena. Thus we are given a body of work to explore: “Things” hang on walls, stapled, propped up or leaning; some finished, others appearing more vulnerable. The fixings are part of the works, which are created through simple processes of assembling, tying, wrapping, or filling, often implying paradoxical notions of stability.
There is a disarming charm in the evidently home-made and hand-crafted fabrications, combining a child-like inquisitiveness with patient methodical labour. They strive for order but inevitably fail to impose it: Lines stray off at angles, ink stains seep into fabric, stacks spill or topple over. Perfection doesn’t interest the artist. Unlike the regimentation of the machine-made or manufactured, the shapes and patterns in Boele-Keimer’s works are of a more natural order, akin to the organic geometry we might find in a seed pod or a leaf. Through a language of tessellations, connections and repetitions the artist finds clarity and fragile balance.
Vera Boele-Keimer was born in Germany and lives in Bristol, UK. She studied at the Academy of Art in Münster and holds an MFA from Bath Spa University. Her work has been shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize and selected for three Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions. She will travel to Norway in 2015 for a residency at Lademoen, Kunstnerverksteder Norway.
This exhibition forms part of a five-month series of exhibitions by British contemporary artists, presented by David Krut Projects, NY, working in collaboration with Jessica Carlisle, a freelance curator and gallerist based in London, UK. The series opened with Piers Secunda (February), Alexander Massouras and Kate McCrickard (March) and coming up are exhibitions by Hester Finch and William Stein (May)
For more information please contact [email protected] or [email protected]
Image: Pink Wedges, 2014, Wood, glue, filler, nail varnish, 27.5 x 12cm
