Distracting Distance, Chapter 16

source: scaaicorg

R.H. Quaytman uses a multilayered vocabulary to complicate assumptions about singular abstract paintings. Since 2000 she has produced “chapters” of paintings structured around a specific theme or concept. The paintings’ narrative thread evolves over time with ongoing references to the Op Art movement, her personal archive of images and patterns, object qualities of a painting, storage and display methods, and memory of the works’ original exhibitions. Quaytman’s wooden painting structures are custom-made in distinct modular sizes, and her compositions take inspiration from book design. In her view, “each painting is a page” that can function individually or together with her other work to represent a complex methodology.

R. H. Quaytman (American, born 1961) currently lives and works in New York. Three of her paintings were included in the 2011 Society for Contemporary Art Acquisition Exhibition. She will have a solo exhibition at The Renaissance Society, Chicago in January 2013. Quaytman has had solo exhibitions at museums and institutions including: Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland; Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; and The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Quaytman’s work has been included in group exhibitions at: CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Sculpture Center, NY; Bergen Kunsthall, Norway; and MoMA PS1, NY. Quaytman was included in the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011 and the Whitney Biennial in 2010. Her work has recently been published in Spine, a 400-page volume that includes her work from the past decade.