glitter than this
Andrew Kennedy
June 18 - July 16, 2022

Zodiac Pictures is thrilled to present glitter than this, a solo exhibition of new work by Andrew Kennedy. On view by appointment June 18 - July 16 2022.

Decorating a theatre’s symbolic fourth-wall, metaphorical and architectural constructs of prosceniums — archways and curtains — frame theatrical viewing spaces while mediating the stage-world from the audience. Adopting these framing devices as both primary form and penetrating sensibility, theatrical interiors constitute many of Andrew Kennedy’s compositions. The contextual indeterminacy of prosceniums’ provokes a tension of medium indeterminacy as drawing, sculpture, print-making, and photography are compounded and collapsed into autonomous objects. Kennedy's repetition of structures condemn visual language to all signifiers' fate as inherently incomplete, a replica without original, a translation without a source. A process of folding subjects in on themselves, rather than inventing a new, then offers an avenue to salvage meaning’s displaced parts while letting the center dissolve. 

Exploring how a page might perform in various contexts, a process of light-handed or reductive assemblage confuses surface and object, drawing and sculpture, to merge and dissipate medium categories. The writing tool of a ballpoint pen transcends casual connotations in carefully rendered architectural drawings, while drawing gestures gently perforate surfaces with a wood-grain-like texture. As mediums fuse with form, relationships between artistic practices become nearly indistinguishable while simultaneously expanding on their definitions. Building outward in a Baroque fashion, hard angles make contact with uneven natural elements such as metals, string, and Kurrajong plant bulbs.  An imperfect frame of copper or gold-leafed candy wrapper guilds high-contrast drawings with metallic surfaces that give off light to gently charge surfaces, evoking devotional paintings and illuminated manuscripts. 

In relation to employing theatrical architecture as subject, Kennedy interrogates framing devices of artistic mediums, eclipsing their tradition as neutral containers. Inserted drawings are adorned with borders that build outward and eventually become subsumed in a comprehensive pictorial space. Here, the subject of the work becomes indistinguishable from their form as structures that hold and support art – stages, matte boards, paper – collapse in on their own functions. In growing reverberations, interiors are echoed, elaborated, and reframed, ultimately throwing into question the origins of all context. From theatrical architecture to pictorial frames, a self-referential process of repeating and merging artistic vessels begins to open the echoing space between mediums. Trapping the viewer between artistic forms, the works composing glitter than this resemble the dual reductive and productive qualities of a prisoner’s cinema — calling forth a flickering primordial light from prolonged darkness.

- Marie Heilich

Andrew Kennedy (b. 1988) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. He received his BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and recently attended Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.