'Resurface'
'Resurface' - Lauren Ball
SideCar is pleased to present Resurface, an exhibition of new work by Lauren Ball. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery.
The title “Resurface” almost functions as a one-word artist statement for the paintings on view. They are born out of a process primarily concerned with surface: the creation and refinement of the painting surface. From a formal and technical standpoint, Ball’s paintings consist of rich surfaces, carefully prepared on linen or panel substrates, that have been built-up, sanded down, poured, layered, and worked into. Ultimately there are two distinct surfaces — the before and the after. There is the surface that the artist creates to make the painting, or the prepared surface, and then there is the finished surface, the end result.
However, the title of the exhibition isn’t just “surface”, it is “Re-surface", the prefix indicating repetition. “Re-ing” can be to make something anew. When something is resurfaced it is made fresh again. It can also be a return to or a move backward.
Ball’s painting process includes a recycling of abstract shapes and source imagery — a “do-over” or a “redo” — which implies correction or repair. Found photographs, nostalgic ephemera and objects may reappear throughout one's life. Someone or something disappears from your life only to reemerge months, sometimes years, later. Tastes, patterns and behaviors, both inside and outside of the studio, resurface. Resurfacing could be said to be the process of transition, from the before surface to the after surface, with all of the complexities and possibilities that the in-between presents.
Lauren Ball is a Chicago-based Artist and Art Educator. She is the Visiting Artist in Residence at Cortland School, a Reggio Emilia haven in Logan Square. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Masters Degree in Art Education from Columbia College Chicago.
Her exhibition history includes shows at Free Range Gallery (Chicago, IL), The Gowanus Ballroom (Brooklyn, NY), SideCar Gallery (Hammond, IN), Tyler School of Art (Rome, Italy), University of New Orleans Gallery (New Orleans, LA), artLedge (Chicago, IL), and The Butcher Shop (Chicago IL)
Opening reception - September 9th, 6 PM - 10 PM
September 9th - October 7th, 2017
