Sadie Laska
I, Clouded, Jun 10 – Jul 12, 2015

CANADA is pleased to present I, Clouded the first solo exhibition by Sadie Laska at the gallery.

Sadie Laska’s paintings are meditations on the fog of contemporary communication and the pleasurable agonies of trial and error painterly expression. The fuzz of electronic meanings in the crowded field of visual information that compete for our collective attention, supply the imagery that Laska employs to create paintings of pulsing energy and release.

In Laska’s work we get fragmented glimpses of signs and symbols, many from recent protest movements such as ones used by the Occupy movement as well as logos from obscure punk bands. These logos and Laska’s signature suggestive abstract shapes rarely stand alone but rather fit together or become enveloped by the whole, pushed back into the air and recesses of each painting. We see luminous colors and backlit magic-marker scrawls that form weightless environments that hold optimism and cultural detritus in equal measure.

Laska’s paintings are full of suggestions, helpful or otherwise, guiding us where to look. The idea that a painting is series of directives for the viewer to follow is interrogated in Laska’s work. The gravity of the paintings is often undercut by a palette of bright primary colors applied in thin washes with occasional bursts of bravura spray paint or brushy scribbles. Strident confidence is often relaxed and reintegrated into something pillowy.

I, Clouded also features large plywood silhouettes brushed in with solid colors. They could be stand-ins for the audience, “the little guy”, other artists, or perhaps a cast of characters ready to stage an “up-with-people” type celebration of diversity. Or these are the guys sending all those damn texts. Either way, the artist, by including these figures, shows us who she had decided to cast her lot with.

I phones, I clouded, FaceTime, in the meantime it is all happening. This show is a lament and an anthem all in one. There is a sense of movement throughout. The thought balloons, are also text balloons… that become anger clouds… that become archaic wall drawings on a prehistoric cave, that become the masterful orchestrations of Claude Monet. We see the paint, the thin paint, nearly backlit like an electronic screen on a huge scale. We can see the revisions the cancellations and we are allowed to reenter the moment we wish could have to do over and over again.

CANADA is located at 333 Broome Street between Chrystie and Bowery Streets. Our hours are 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM Wednesday through Sunday.

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