Philadelphia, PA - Tiger Strikes Asteroid Philadelphia is pleased to present Individual Gravities, an exhibition featuring new works by Alexis Granwell, Elana Herzog, and Trish Tillman, curated by Alex Ebstein. Individual Gravities brings together the works of three artists whose practices stretch between classifications of sculpture, painting, and installation. Dense, rigid materials achieve levitation, while paper, fabric and voluminous structures take on density and weight, rooted to their supporting planes. Conceptual and thematic overlaps subtly weave together an environment that examines material value through a personal and social lens. Reclaimed and found materials are minimally altered, presented as small monuments or added as adornments to constructed surface. While gravity acts as a force defied by this group of work, it also connotes significant importance and points to the three individual perspectives.
Alexis Granwell’s background in printmaking and paper-making inspires the inventive material sensibility and physicality she brings to her sculptural work. Adhering handmade paper to papier-mâché and wire armatures, Granwell constructs assemblages that suggest ruination, artifact, mineral, and body. The tactility of paper forms a dynamic energy in contrast to the inert quality of the industrial materials, which act as both support and remnant. Together, these materials create fragile structures that retain a corporeal presence.
Elana Herzog’s immersive works balance rigor and playfulness, engaging with the impermanence of material matter. She incorporates metal staples that embed and deconstruct found textiles into various surfaces, including gallery walls and mixed media constructions. Herzog uses materials that are non-precious, second-hand, discarded or cheaply mass-produced to consider aspects of entropy, pleasure, pain, attraction, and revulsion. Her current focus is on the global migrations of culture and technology as seen through the lens of textile.
Trish Tillman’s modular wall sculptures combine hand-sewn and upholstered geometric shapes with industrial objects, human hair, rope, and jewelry. Her materials grip, puncture, and drape over each other in meticulous forms, often arranged in perfect symmetry. These works are well-crafted but punk. Tillman’s hybrid creations suggest talismans, fragmented bodies, and ostentatious furniture, questioning notions of ritual, fantasy, and tastefulness.