Pippy Houldsworth Gallery is pleased to announce Sunset Park, the first UK solo exhibition by young US artist Luke Diiorio. The show features a new installation of folded paintings.
Drawing on the formal vernacular of Minimalist painting, Diiorio’s works are made from linen and raw canvas through a meticulous process of painting, stitching and folding. This show furthers the artist’s continued interest into the role and limitations of form and material to generate meaning. Using folds to fragment the surface of the canvas, the exhibition also expands Diiorio’s ongoing exploration into the interrelation between visual and physical pleasure.
Transgressing the boundary between painting and sculpture, the artist’s folded compositions play with notions of visibility and materiality. Subtle variations between each fold generate a rhythm of line and space, creating a unique form of visual syntax, particularly so when displayed side by side. Encouraging a heightened sensitivity to the work’s formal properties, slight altercations in size and colour become drastically noticeable. Through the act of folding, much of the material and handwritten text is also obscured, thus forcing ‘the viewer to determine image and meaning from what is given and what is assumed.’
Whilst the title of the show refers to the area of Brooklyn in which the artist’s studio is located, it also encapsulates several of Diiorio’s formal concerns. The artist explains that ‘on the one hand, Sunset stands for something fading yet illuminated; the more it disappears, the more desirable it becomes. On the other hand, Park represents a physical space of form and play.’ Bodily in size, the work’s sense of physicality is subsequently emphasised even further.
Luke Diiorio (b.1983) lives and works in New York and received his MA from the Royal College of Art, London in 2013. Pippy Houldsworth Gallery will be presenting a special project by Luke Diiorio at Art Basel Hong Kong in March 2016.
