Encompass
March 2019 at 950 Gallery, Tacoma, WA
Tacoma-based artists Elise Richman and Nicholas Nyland collaboratively produced Encompass, an installation that takes its cues from the unusual spaces and ad hoc architectural details of the 950 Gallery space. The site-specific and collaborative installation pieces are included with individual studio work chosen to implicate the spaces of the gallery.
By giving the architecture and fixtures an active role in the artwork, Nyland and Richman hope to set up for the viewer a sense of resonance among their work with echoes of forms throughout the gallery. For instance, a set of pipes that straddle one corner of the gallery are taken as initial gestures from which similar pipes are installed to create a sort of drawing with over-sized “lines”. Other installation works include a video installation, a ghostly column of embroidery floss, a seemingly gravity defying-sculpture, and a light capturing scrim that functions as an ever-changing “painting” based on the time of day.
Also on view are individual works that are more characteristic of each artists’ individual studio practice that provide a starting point for the viewer to recognize the overlaps and distinctive forms that ripple out through the installations. Each artist embraces the encompassing, expansive potential of abstraction, infusing the legacy of Modernist movements such as Minimalism and Constructivism with playful, personal sensibilities.