Soft Boundaries
Linda Lopez
Marsha Yi Robinson
Derrick VELASQUEZ
MAY 30 - JULY 28, 2024
508 W 28th St
New York, NY 10001
MarSha Yi Robinson, When all there is left is longing, 2024
SKYE GALLERY is thrilled to present Soft Boundaries, a group exhibition featuring works by Linda Lopez, MarSha Yi Robinson, and Derrick Velasquez. The exhibition will include a selection of ink drawings and sculptures that in tandem, invite viewers to reconsider their perspective on how objects, materials, and humans interplay.
Soft Boundaries will be on view from May 30th to July 28th, 2024. Skye Gallery will host an opening reception from 6-8 pm on Thursday, May 30th, located at 508 W 28th St., New York, NY 10001.
Velasquez, Lopez, and Robinson rely on vastly different processes and mediums, culminating in unique visual stories about encountering new relationships through reimagined material. Linda Lopez’s sculptures weave together porcelain with her signature “dust flurries” to give everyday objects hidden lives. Rejecting the notion of inanimacy, she imbues each creation with a language and vitality of its own, exploring the relationship between human emotions and utilitarian items. Her work invites audiences to appreciate the textures and intricacies of the mundane, prompting a reevaluation of our surroundings.
MarSha Yi Robinson’s ink drawings explore tensions between binary relationships – the feminine and masculine, the hard and soft – using India ink to reimagine the binary between nature and structure. Robinson delves into the complicated folds of intimacy and love. Geometric shapes act as both embracing vessels and protective barriers. Florals symbolize the softness and vulnerability inherent in intimacy, immersing readers in a heartscape that recalls the pain and wonder of love since passed.
Derrick Velasquez’s wall sculptures are constructed from layers of colored vinyl that he configures into abstract sculptures that challenge viewers' perceptions of space, form, and function. Velasquez reflects on the connection between gravity and shadows, encouraging tactile encounters that resonate with the body’s experience. Each piece, evoking familiar images from the natural world like drooping rainbows and brushstrokes frozen in time, is a perceptual journey that facilitates contemplation on the parallel between art and lived experience.
“All three of these artists hold prominent Colorado roots as well as being internationally recognized,” shares owner and curator Skye Weinglass, who moved Skye Gallery from Aspen to New York in 2023. “It feels full circle to bring together these renowned Colorado artists to NYC, especially artists who are so highly respected and whose careers I've followed for over a decade.”
We invite you to experience the subtle coexistence and invisible intertwinings that underpin the collective work in Soft Boundaries.
Installation views
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
LINDA NGUYEN LOPEZ
(b. 1981, Visalia, California) is a first-generation American artist of Vietnamese and Mexican descent. Her abstract works explore the poetic potential of the every day by imagining and articulating a vast emotional range embedded in the mundane objects that surround us. Her works have been exhibited in Italy, New Zealand, England, France, and throughout the United States, including the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC; Craft Contemporary Museum, Los Angeles; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville; Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach; Springfield Art Museum; The Hole, New York; Red Arrow Gallery, Nashville; and the Museum of Art and Design, New York. Lopez is an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Arkansas.
MARSHA YI ROBINSON
is a self-taught artist born in Seoul, Korea, raised in New York City and Los Angeles, and currently lives in the Southwest. Her hand-drawn artwork, primarily using India ink, combines floral and geometric structures. The contrast between the floral and geometric produces a dynamic tension that troubles binary relationships, such as feminine/masculine, hard/soft, and organic/synthetic. Her paintings challenge commonplace notions of floral beauty, expanding botanical aesthetics and concepts into more diverse and nuanced territory. Since 2014, Robinson created and sold her original works and fine art prints as Strange Dirt. She shows with Skye Gallery in New York City.
DERRICK VELASQUEZ
is an artist and exhibition organizer who lives and works in Denver, Colorado. He was a 2017 recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Painters and Sculptors and a 2019 MacDowell Fellow. Derrick has served on the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs and the boards of Denver nonprofits Tilt West, Union Hall, and Minerva Projects. His most recent exhibitions include solo shows at The Herron School of Art and Design, The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver,Robischon Gallery (Denver), Pentimenti (Philadelphia), Carvalho Park (Brooklyn) Galerie Robertson Ares (Montreal) and The Black Cube Nomadic Museum and group exhibitions at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Transmitter in New York, Derrick founded and ran Yes Ma’am Projects, an artist-run gallery in the basement of his Athmar Park home and Friend of a Friend, a new project space in the Evans School, a mostly vacant schoolhouse in Downtown Denver. He has organized exhibitions at the MCA in Denver, Trestle Gallery in New York, The Carnegie in Covington, Kentucky and at Galerie Robertson Arés in Montreal.