Exhibition

Jaya Howey: The In Acts Out

2 April – 30 May 2010
Opening reception: Friday, 2 April, 6:00-8:00pm

At Marginal Utility's new location: 319 North 11th Street, 2nd Floor

Marginal Utility is proud to present ‘The In Acts Out’, an installation of paintings by the Brooklyn based Artist Jaya Howey.

Through a quiet hostility towards the notion of autonomous artistic production, Howey’s paintings present a ludic engagement with the current trends and debates about the resurgence of formalist painting.

On first glance, Howey’s installation appears to be concerned primarily with ideas surrounding seriality and the object-ness of the painted surface. A closer inspection reveals that each canvas is actually a repository for a subjective and deliberate (albeit still very casual) group of painterly actions pushed just to the point of compositional stability. Howey’s subtle and considered play with the materials and dimensions of the built and stretched surface strikes a humorous contrast with the conversational and often banal titles that he gives the paintings. Situating his work within this tension between two registers of meaning, Howey provides no indication as to which interpretation is preferable or correct.

Howey’s work engages the preset expectations of what painters produce in the post-minimal landscape. His practice develops through a process of self interrogation, developing bodies of work that do not merely compliment, but often puts in question what has previously been at stake in the artist’s work. In doing so, Howey asserts a stance which is larger and more nuanced than it’s individual parts.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jaya Howey shows with Taxter and Spengemann in New York City and was recently included in the exhibition "Besides, With, Against, and Yet; Abstraction and the Ready-Made Gesture" at The Kitchen in New York. jayahowey.blogspot.com/

CONTACT US

If you have any questions, please contact: exhibition@marginalutility.org

319 N. 11th Street, 2nd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107
PHONE 917.355.4487 www.marginalutility.org
HOURS: Friday 5:00–8:00 PM, Saturday-Sunday 12:00–5:00 PM