The
June Kelly Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new
paintings by Sarah Plimpton, titled Alphabet +, reflective of
her resolute interest in the intrigue of the alphabet letter itself.
The exhibition will open on April 20 and remain on view through June
20.
Plimpton, who is both accomplished poet and painter, writes, I have
always loved early pre-historic art. The first lines and
circles made by humans have an incredible force. I wanted to
make lines or signs that had the same force. Those first lines
and circles were eventually arranged for meaning - the alphabet.
In my paintings I often used letters or invented letters. During
Covid I could not get to my studio. I had always dreamed of
either painting or drawing every letter of the alphabet. Covid
gave me a chance to do that. I took up the pencil and drew the
alphabet. Every letter. Once the quarantine was over, I
returned to the studio and painted each one. Shadows and light
for every letter, shadows and light for other paintings.
In this
body of work, Plimpton, ever enthralled with letters of the alphabet
as “capacity for ‘magic,’” illustrates in oil on Yupo Paper, shadows
and light effecting the independent landscape of each letter, (Alphabet
A, 2022). Plimpton experiences her strokes as zen
…calmness channeled by intuitiveness when forming the letters.
With vast spatial ambiguity, limited palette, she craftily anchors
each letter straightforwardly in bold presentation in the picture
plane.
Plimpton’s oil on linen paintings evidence her genius with
improvisation …distinct freehand mark making of invented alphabet
letters appearing as spur-of-the-moment interconnectedness within
hazy abstractions of landscapes. It is the letters themselves
in Plimpton’s alphabet paintings that practically quiver and dance
as communicant of illusions of infinite depth.
“I’m
illustrating letters,” says Plimpton, alphabet or invented…making
them come alive in a different way,” (Altogether Now, 2021).
Plimpton will also show a handmade book that she created with her
illustrations of letters of the alphabet along with text.
Plimpton is a native of New York City. She received a
bachelor’s degree from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts,
and attended Harvard Medical School before moving to Paris, where
she lived for 19 years. She also studied at Pratt Graphics
Center in New York. Her work has been shown in exhibitions in New
York, Paris, and Zurich. She is represented in many important
public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Heckscher Museum, Jane Voorhees
Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, Columbia University Rare
Books and Manuscript Library, The Harris Collection at Brown
University, New York Public Library, and the Library of Congress.
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