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Summer Produce - Jason Willaford


Galleri Urbane - Dallas

Summer Produce

Jason Willaford

October 12 - November 16, 2019

Opening Reception: Saturday, October 12, 5:30-8 p.m.

 

Following the success of this year’s After A Long Pause… exhibition, Jason Willaford returns to present

his most recent vinyl constructions. Summer Produce includes work completed in the artist’s Florida

studio this summer as well as pieces finished in the weeks leading up the exhibition. Taking the

momentum from his April show, Willaford has employed new techniques and materials to continue

pushing his approach to working with this unique medium.

 

Willaford’s spring exhibition presented many breakthroughs for the artist. Through a meticulouslyhoned

additive and subtractive process that involves cutting, sewing, and painting with markers, spray

paints, and latex paint, Willaford used vinyl to create intricate wall sculptures. Willaford showcased his

formal training as a painter, altering the vinyl surface with vibrant hues of color to transform one’s initial

reading of the material. The work in Summer Produce continue along this trajectory and, most notably,

introduce the use of Flashe paint which offers sections of intense, velvety matte color. Juxtaposed

against other finishes like metallic paint marker, the Flashe paints contribute to achieving a surface that

is rich with depth.

 

One of the biggest developments that the spring exhibition begot was the ability of each sculpture to

exist either alone as a single organism or as part of a larger conglomerate when joined with others.

Willaford has ran with this advancement to create the centerpiece for Summer Produce, presenting a

wall-sized installation of vinyl structures. Each individually created, the sections have been arranged on

site to create a unique work that has the potential to be rearranged and reconfigured any number of

ways. This approach is a macro version of Willaford’s studio practice in which he produces numerous

smaller components that get organically grouped and sewn together to form complete structures,

examples of which also accompany the installation. Constantly inspired by dynamic systems of growth

found in nature and science, this installation is a fitting progression for Willaford.

Summer Produce serves as a testament to the versatility of Willaford’s objects. From the small and

contained to the large and conjoined, each form is created from an inquisitive mindset that invites

limitless possibilities.

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Jason Willaford received his BFA from Florida State University where he studied under Jim Roche and

Color Field painter Trevor Bell. After years as an encaustic painter in Marfa, Texas, he shifted his focus to

vinyl-based constructions, which were exhibited in a solo exhibition at Oklahoma Contemporary in

2014. In the summer of 2015, Willaford participated in a residency at the former home and studio of

Elaine de Kooning in East Hampton, NY and presented the resulting body of work in a solo show at

Dallas Contemporary that fall. In 2019, Willaford was commissioned by Green Box Arts Festival in

Green Mountain Falls, Colorado to create an outdoor billboard installation, joining artists like Spencer

Finch who have also completed the project. His work can be found in over 200 private and the public

collections, including Bloomingdales, Toyota, and Neiman Marcus, among others. He lives and works in

Dallas, TX.

 

Official Site  

Price
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2277 Monitor St. · Dallas, TX 75207


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