Various recent group exhibitions have articulated a preoccupation with more primary elements of artistic production. Whether iterated as formalism, objecthood, "thingness," or sculptural assemblage, these exhibitions attempt to frame a renewed interest in visual exuberance and focus on materiality. The relationship of primary elements to psychology is often under-examined. Psychogeometry picks up on another primary construct—geometry—and presents three artists whose work exists in the peculiar personal, cultural, and historical intersections between psychology and geometry.
Including work in a variety of media by David Hatcher, Laura Riboli, and Brian Sharp, the exhibition takes a nod from Guy Debord's notion of psychogeography—especially his focus on its effect "on the emotions and behavior of individuals." Instead of closing off or articulating a distinct relationship between geometry and psychology, Psychogeometry will function more as a drift through possibilities.
David Hatcher creates hallucinatory prints on perforated blotter paper by re-purposing diagrams from Western philosophical texts. In Laura Riboli’s videos, objects take on totemic, science-fiction qualities through their suggestive geometry and re-animation. Brian Sharp's abstract paintings take the notion of abstraction as language to its logical extreme, oscillating between recreational linguistics and formalism.
The exhibition will also feature a rotating selection of research materials, visual references, and other ephemera.
Psychogeometry is organized by Matthew Thompson, Associate Curator, Aspen Art Museum.