February 19 - April 1, 2017

STEPHEN WILLIAMS + DAVID RICHARDS :: MUSCLE FIBER SUNRISE

UNUM is please to present new work by Stephen Williams and David Richards.

​

Both Williams and Richards came to prominence in Chicago in the 1990s, with deeply personal paintings and idiosyncratic relief sculptures that acknowledge the influence of the Chicago Imagists who preceded them, but contained a gravity, materiality and lexicon of their own.

Each artist explores inner landscapes and narratives through a personal material vocabulary -- Williams working with paint on paper and ink, Richards constructing and collaging artworks that resemble games, toys, contraptions, organs and drones.  Both artists deftly employ erasure and accumulation, highly finished areas contrasting with the rough, and memory – synaptic or sentimental – as a running theme most easily seen in idiosyncratic text and titles.    

Muscle Fiber Sunrise:  synapses firing, goo connecting, scaley surfaces, drones and biomass, puzzle pieces that fit – or not.  Erasure, construction, spirituality, mystery. Connectivity, electriity, strength, resiliance, landscape and light.