Thierry Goldberg is pleased to present Form Destroyer, NH
DePass’ first solo show with the gallery. The exhibition runs from
March 18th through April 18th, 2021.
In NH DePass’ work there is disjuncture
between old and new: a tension between craft and digital innovation. The artist
uses classical techniques like hand sewing and carpentry while incorporating digital
graphics and printing to create works that disturb historical and cultural
timelines.
The foundation of DePass’ practice lies
in his vintage graphic drawings, which are both individually framed and
featured in many of the sculptures in Form Destroyer. The drawings are
first rendered by the artist in black ink, then scanned and transformed
digitally, screen-printed, and finally lightly colored and detailed with ink
and marker. As in his drawings, DePass reflects on historically divergent modes
of production through the manual construction of the wood cabinet sculptures in
the exhibition. In the making of these sculptures, DePass forgoes the machine
and focuses instead on 20th century craftsmanship. Additionally, the
exhibition includes three canvases with screen-printed imagery sewn on by hand.
These works, like the others in the exhibition, signal an odd mixture of
contemporary and outmoded methods of making. The canvases and the six wooden
sculptures are not only studies of technique, but are also ‘non-figurative’
portraits. These portraits command the show by presenting countless objects
that hold clues into their namesakes’ lives – clues into their essences, rather
than their physical appearances.
The six hand-fabricated sculptural
works in Form Destroyer – William (2019), Elizabeth (2021), and Keith (2021), Gregor (2020), Emma (2019), and Nicholas -
A Self-Portrait (2021) – are all unique portraits that resemble cabinets of
curiosity rather than the traditional painted portrait. DePass’ novel cabinets
are odes to their namesakes, filled with prized possessions and significant
mementos, which imitate their subject’s interests, habits, and vices. Each
tucked away object functions like a piece in a game of I Spy – and
allows one to connect clues to form an idea of someone based on material
objects. For instance, in Gregor (2020) one finds a collection of 8
balls, a pair of dice, a comb, leather dress shoes, a leather vest, suspenders, and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of
Grass. Through the collection of items, DePass’ portraits seek to capture
the idiosyncrasies and unique personality of the individual, allowing one to
construct an image and idea of Gregor in their mind. The interactive potential
of the cabinets render and preserve Gregor’s essence, and therefore feel alive.
DePass’ chests honor the living as they
visually and metaphorically resemble aboveground tombs. These structures act
not as reminders of death, but as vessels meant to celebrate the individuals.
This is aptly reminiscent of DePass’ surroundings in New Orleans, where the
city’s iconic tombs and cemeteries are situated above ground, due to its
elevation. Throughout the city, mausoleums stand like elegant homes for the
dead in a similar way as DePass’ artworks stand in for the living.
The mid-century Modern design of
DePass’ sculptures, along with their eccentric objects match the tenor of the
artist’s drawings by toiling with vintage Americana. The drawings mimic
American vintage logos and graphics, and feature many of the objects and icons
that adorn DePass’ cabinets, such as hints of music and Wild West motifs. The
bombardment of depictions of American rock-and-roll, cowboy life, and the
precarity of living on the edge, are what make the artist’s works feel alive,
yet haunted. Just like the antique-inspired aesthetic of the wood cabinets, the
drawings’ use of graphics such as railways, vintage newspaper print, and ‘Jack
and Jill’-esque characters, make these compositions seem like cryptic printed
matter reflecting on the country’s romanticizing of a time past. This trippy
sensation opens a portal into a digitally rendered critique of nostalgia for a simpler
time and a pre-digital world.
In the way that DePass’ works negate
the digital world and break normal of modes of production, they are ‘form
destroyers.’ Accordingly, the ‘form destroyers’ from Philip K. Dick’s A Maze of Death make one second guess
the function and nature of the object and question it’s true potential and
meaning. Similar to the ‘form
destroyers,’ DePass metaphorically breaks down the nature of an individual and
represents their core in object form. This transfiguration is otherworldly, yet
produced by an object-oriented society, and in effect, has allowed the artist to
create his own portraits, or expressions, of human spirit.
NH DePass (b. 1990,
New Orleans, LA) lives and works in New Orleans, LA. He holds a MFA from Pratt
Institute of Fine Arts, Brooklyn, NY and a BFA from Savannah College of Art and
Design (SCAD), Savannah, GA. He is a 2021 Resident of the Joan Mitchell Center
in New Orleans, LA. DePass’ work has been included in exhibitions at GNYP
Gallery, Berlin, Germany; Public Gallery, London, United Kingdom; The Pit LA,
Los Angeles, CA; and Mount Analogue, Seattle, WA, among others. This is his
first exhibition with Thierry Goldberg Gallery.
The gallery is open Wednesday to Sunday from 10am to 6pm. For more information please email or call
the gallery at + 1. 212.228.7569 or info@thierrygoldberg.com