Gradient Crush

Audrey Stone

August 1 - December 31, 2023

ODETTA Petite

Artist’s Statement

In Gradient Crush, I depart from my usual studio practice, creating a contradiction between the formal elements of painting and the casual crushing of the material. The parallel linear pattern in the work is disrupted by bending and folding the oversized material, both to create a shape in space and to fit into ODETTA Petite. These pieces are meant to be site- and space- specific, expanding, shrinking, and molding into the available space, whatever its dimensions.

I relish the play inherent in ODETTA Petite – a place for fantasy, the opportunity to imagine something new. Paradoxically, in this small space I can imagine Gradient Crush being oversized and environmental in scale, work that would intrude on an area and take it over, forcing the viewer to have to move around it or perhaps even find their movement inhibited by it.

I enjoy the double meaning in the title: both the literal crushing of the material and the idea of having a “crush” on someone or something. I am so continually entranced and excited by color that one could easily say I have a crush on it.

Curator’s Notes

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Audrey throughout several exhibitions at ODETTA, both in person at our gallery spaces, and now virtually. Audrey’s color sense is exhilarating and her interest in the playfulness of ODETTA Petite offers us another opportunity to share our color crush with one another.

There is a practical side to ODETTA Petite as well in that Gradient Crush is actually a scaled model for a proposed large-scale crushed painting, that would measure approximately 120 x 120 x 96 inches. This final monumental painting will be a site-specific commissioned work of art, yet again moving the artist’s scope in her painting into three-dimensional space. Inquiries about this commissioned work can be made through ODETTA Director Ellen Hackl Fagan at odettagallery@gmail.com.