MITCHELL WRIGHT
November 13 - December 22

The gallery is thrilled to announce a solo exhibition of new paintings by Brooklyn-based artist Mitchell Wright.  This is Wright's first exhibition at the gallery and features abstract paintings made with alternating tones of acrylic paint worked into detailed, optical patterns.  Additional works by the artist will be featured in the gallery's booth at NADA Miami from December 1-4.  Please note that the gallery is closed from November 25th to December 6th.

Wright's paintings are intensive perceptual journeys along activated surfaces.  Complex geometric structures appear to pulsate on the surface of his works.  In one compositional approach, Wright structures his canvases with a matrix of small circles and fills them with repeated lines that touch adjacent shapes at distinct angles.  Subtle colors added to an all-over pattern create the vague feel of infused color, demanding the eye's concentration.  Underlayers of paint in pink, aqua, and yellow appear at the edges of shapes, as though seeping through a mesh, while diluted hues painted over a basic monochrome pattern pull the eye to specific areas of the surface.  In a second compositional approach, Wright creates a pattern of vertical lines and then intersperses curving, patterned lines throughout.  As the edges of various shapes touch each other, they create the perception of movement unfolding along the surface.  Small dots added to the compositions provide additional anchors for the eye.

Rather than entering into the paintings perspectivally, our eyes scan Wright's flat patterns, from top to bottom and side-to-side.  At times the pictures seem to flicker and blink, as in the work, 'Instead of Looking at the Ocean.'  Here, the entire geometric surface appears to pulse, perhaps conveying the undulating sense of an ocean's constant churn, a nod to painter Bridget Riley's use of optical abstraction to relate sensations felt in nature.  A group of small yellow circles in the upper left corner of this work appear and disappear to the eye, relating the reflection of sun on water or the optical effect of spots seen after a camera's flash.  Wright's surfaces are both perceptual and active.  They relate one's own sense of sight and at the same time appear mobile and difficult to fully capture.

Mitchell Wright was born in 1976 in Winona, Mississippi, and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.  He received a BFA from Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, in 2001, and an MFA from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN in 2005.  Wright has had solo exhibitions at Sweet Lorraine Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2019), Sardine, Brooklyn, NY (2014), and White Columns, NY (2006), among others.  Group exhibitions include Taymour Grahne, NY, NY, the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, Brennan & Griffin, NY, NY, Cinders Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Gallery Min Min, Tokyo, Japan, and Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara, CA, among others.

The gallery and artist would like to thank poet Evan Gill-Smith for his reflection and collaboration on the titles of the paintings.

The artist would also like to thank Brenna Board, Holly Coulis and Ridley Howard for their support.