Eleanor Harwood Gallery is pleased to present Negatives, our first solo show with Andy Vogt.
Andy Vogt has been showing in the Bay Area since 2006, garnering praise and recognition for his reclaimed wood lath sculptures which include flat, wall works and large scale, site-specific interventions. In his new exhibit, Vogt presents two new directions that relate to his previous wood sculptures, yet represent distinct departures from them.
Vogt’s new processes and materials have pushed him to embrace color, experimentation and elements of chance while using his wood sculpture as part of the process in making new work.
His new bodies of work; ‘In C’, and “Light Oxidized”, are literally and figuratively the residual shadows of lath constructions that no are longer present. Some sculptures may have been destroyed, others are just not present in the exhibition. Their removal from the mise en scène leaves behind a hazy, visual recollection of the objects. Their likenesses are trapped in time and material, as murky after-images.
His new series of concrete sculptures, titled ‘In C’, begin as shallow relief assemblages of salvaged wood lath into which concrete is poured and pressed. The cured concrete slabs are released by destroying the wood forms leaving behind the impression of wood texture and some of the actual wood grain trapped in the surface of the concrete.
Another new group of works called, “Light Oxidized”, appear painterly as framed canvasses. However, his process is closer to that of photography than painting, and uses sunlight to capture shadow images of his wood sculpture. These works begin as lath constructions that are placed on top of stretched fabric that has been coated with vividly colored, photosensitive pigments. When exposed to sunlight, the pigment in the uncovered areas of fabric develops and leaves the shadows cast by the sculpture unexposed and thus lighter, like a photographic negative. The final images, once fixed by washing and rinsing, are archival like a traditional photograph.