Amy Myers, SPIN ZERO
October 16 – November 15, 2008
Mike Weiss Gallery is pleased to announce SPIN ZERO featuring new works on paper by Amy Myers.
There are many realms beyond human comprehension that need endless investigation, curiosity and above all, the creativity and freedom to move in every possible direction, especially the seemingly impossible. This is the working space of artist Amy Myers, fascinated by the infinite possibilities of theoretical physics and striving to give viewers an experience deep inside the inner workings of the universe in this new body of works on paper.
The daughter of a physicist, Myers possesses a keen understanding of an exclusively understood scientific language. She is constantly asking questions; it is her insatiable curiosity as to the structure of everything around us and what is going on beneath the surface, making up our world that propels her train of thought. The seemingly calculated drawings are strongly intuitive yet created in a very conscious state where every mark is a mindful decision. It is as if she has the ability to activate a part of the brain that is, for the most part, unused in all of us. The developmental process of the works themselves is highly unexpected, beginning from the outside and growing towards a tightly woven center on their grid like backgrounds. The resulting symmetry is reminiscent of the rotation that naturally occurs throughout the entire universe, affecting even the most infinitesimal particle.
While it would be simple to intimidate or lose viewers with such grandiose and all inclusive concepts that inspire the artist such as theoretical physics or string theory, Amy Myers works with the notion of intimacy on many different levels in mind. It is the intimacy of the viewing that allows the mind to wander while tracing through the intricate mix of calculated linear and fluid organic forms. The large scale drawings can envelop the viewer's line of sight and create a space to step into. The use of the paper itself is not only a showcase for the artist’s technical virtuosity with the medium, but is as well loaded with intimate notions. Myers incorporates her body as a tool when drawing, her hands touching the paper hundreds, thousands of times during its creation, her body close to it as she completes the minute details that make up her thought provoking formations. Throughout this entire process, it is the paper that is unforgiving of mistakes and never forgets. Every foregone idea and every touch is left in plain sight, relics of every experiment and changed mood, the paper is the record keeper as a scientist holds data of every move.
Amy Myers successfully interweaves two realms that rarely seem to co exist in a relevant oeuvre; she dissolves the apparent dichotomy between scientific thought and art. Through these works on paper, scientific concepts are transformed into philosophical notions. Amy Myers brings us the makings of the universe as we’ve never known it; each work is at once an all encompassing body of the universe and a minute building block in the unknowable structure of it all.