A Solo Exhibition by Alison Kudlow

Opening on February 2, 2019 from 6pm-9pm Elijah Wheat Showroom will present “Meaningful Rituals in Irrational Times” a solo exhibition by Alison Kudlow. The title is a phrase, taken out of a lecture by Katherine Hubbard in reference to Zoe Leonard’s “Strange Fruit.”

The physical site of the gallery will embrace and capture light, promoting the ritual of a flame, yet its glow is frozen in glass. To highlight the radiance, we are amending our open hours in the heart of a dark New York winter. For this show only, the gallery will be open in the evenings from 4-9pm, on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and by appointment.

The artist “investigates the moments when sunlight splits open to reveal its spectrum and small schisms of time and space.” Kudlow “aims to materialize these moments, to freeze time and embody unseen forces.” Throughout the display in the gallery, she exploits the liquidity of glass, and ceramics as she captures moments of ambiguous puddles and drips. Kudlow states that her “praxis is utopian, a repeated ritual that aims to extinguish loss, but can only bring us to the brink of transcendence. The work celebrates the unknown and the unknowable, the space between science and mythology.” There is a self-published chap-book accompanying the exhibition entitled “Turning Time.”

Lurking among the Hearths, are porcelain objects named Caltrops, and some Shards both broken and whole. They are displayed on the floor and on a large pedestal, subtly lit from the inside with LEDs, refracting off droplets of glass, oozing and frozen like still water. “Together they form a landscape, a battlefield” Kudlow examines. Reminiscing on these ancient pods, the artist finds meaning in their form and functionality as medicinal, lucky, yet menacing 'infiltrates' invading the North American environment. Research shows the multi purpose life of the plant and its vitality within a rich history, however unknown to a common passerby on the banks of the Hudson River.

We celebrate the unknown by welcoming our guests to be warmed around Kudlow’s Hearths. These works are composed of selenite logs, cradling blown glass forms with encased krypton or neon. The glass is arrested fluidity among the white ‘timbers’, white opposite of charcoal. The sculptures are reminiscent of a campfire, soothing a visitor with the glow of flickering flames. EWS shares another level of a gathering place, where one can relay stories, folklore and present narratives of mysticism or geology. 

Alison Kudlow (b. 1981) lives and works in Brooklyn. She has BA from the University of Southern California, a post-baccalaureate degree from Brandeis University and is currently in her final year of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Low-Residency MFA Program in Studio Art. She has shown at numerous galleries including Field Projects, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Flux Factory, UrbanGlass, and Deanna Evans Projects, and at Fullerton College. This is her first time exhibiting with Elijah Wheat Showroom.