SALLY PAUL | Honey Trap | MELANIE’S OFFICE

April 21 - May 31, 2024

VIEW EXHIBITION

I make object-like paintings depicting lively grids that are an unlikely marriage between geometric abstraction and craft. I’m inspired by female driven textile art of the past 200 years as well as exploring a non-traditional approach to painting, pushing against the limits of the medium.

Made from acrylic, acrylic peels and painting medium on wood panel, the work evokes toothsome textiles with a focus on texture, finish, color interactions, simple geometric compositions and framing devices. Paint is poured and squeezed rather than dabbed and brushed. Wavering pressure, errant air bubbles, and subtle movements of the body are all captured and encapsulated in the paint, creating clues pointing the viewer to the artist’s hand and process. I’m drawn to both high and low contrast, bright and muted colors, matte and glossy surfaces, organization amongst variation, one activating the other. I hope to imbue these works with meaning, mystery and a relationship to the past and the future, ultimately allowing viewers to make their own connections through inferences from the colors combinations, patterns and forms that take shape.

Sally Paul (b.1974 Philadelphia, PA) is an artist, educator and curator based in Kansas City, MO. Paul has exhibited at Shelter, Essex Flowers, My Pet Ram, 247365, and The Arsenal Gallery in New York City and at the MdW Art Fair in Chicago, The EKRU Project, and Holsum Gallery in Kansas City. As a Museum Educator, she has taught at the Museum of Modern Art, The American Folk Art Museum, International Center of Photography, and The Bronx Museum. She is the co-founder of Troost Gardens, an artist-run gallery located in Kansas City, MO. Paul received a BFA from Pratt Institute and MA in Art Education from New York University. Sally Paul is a current visual art resident at the Charlotte Street Foundation.