Winter Street Gallery is pleased to present EXIBITION, a tightly-focused presentation with works by Ellen Berkenblit, Jim Lambie, and David Shrigley. Borrowing the title of Shrigley’s neon installation, the display highlights the resounding symbols and semantics in contemporary art making, and the ways in which these three artists complicate the polarity between descriptive imagery and abstraction. 

In the center of the gallery, Shrigley’s neon glows florescent green above a grid of six works on paper. In keeping with the artist’s signature approach, the drawings combine child-like illustrations alongside deadpan phrases; for instance a rendering of an ice cream cone accompanied by the inscription “NEW FLAVOUR / TASTES OF NOTHING.” Drawing on the format of street signage and advertisements, Shrigley undermines the sense of authority associated with public announcements, while also providing a humorous commentary on the perceived preciousness of art and exhibitions.

In the adjacent space, three female figures by Berkenblit line up next to one another. All of these face to the right, variously with mouths closed, wide open, or fixed as in a shriek. Although consistent in tone, color palette, and formal arrangement, each face expresses a distinct and invidualized note of intrigue. In front of their recurring black backgrounds, they create a syncopated rhythm that reveals Berkenblit’s ability to push motifs to a near psychological breaking point.

At another tempo, Lambie’s colorful wool painting recalls his “Zobop” works – a term coined by the artist as a reference to “Bebop” jazz of the 1940s. In the spirit of this genre’s characteristic sudden and unpredictable chord progressions, wool threads of purple, pink, orange, and green pulse across the picture plane. In all of these works, crucial missing elements activate the imagery on view: Berkenblit’s absent bodies, the discontinued lines in Lambie’s work, or the letter “H” intentionally left out in the titular work; the three artists look to that which is seemingly unfamiliar or incomplete, introducing a feeling of mystery, humor, and affection.

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