Clash by NIght: Gelah Penn at Real Art Ways

Gelah Penn, "The Naked Kiss," 2009. Site specific installation at McKenzie Fine Art, New York, NY.

Real Art Ways
56 Arbor St., Hartford, (860) 232-1006
Gelah Penn
Clash by Night
August 20–October 11, 2009.
Opening: Thursday, August 20, 6-8 PM
Artist Talk: Thursday, September 24, 6 pm

Press release

Gelah Penn’s work is both sparse and substantial. Her site-specific installation presents jagged, three dimensional lines, shapes, and colors set against stark white walls. The unconventional materials used in her work include vinyl lanyard, monofilament, plastic mesh, rubber & vinyl tubing, plastic & Styrofoam balls, and upholstery needles. “In my recent work I explore the linear language of drawing in three-dimensional space using the lexicon of gestural abstraction," Penn explains. "By manipulating colored monofilament and other tendril-like materials, I mean to construct a kind of substantive ephemerality, an accretion of marks and their shadows delineating maelstroms of visual noise; a luminous expanse in suspended animation, conjuring microscopic activity, arterial systems, dust, and weather.”

Gelah Penn was born in Beaver Falls, PA, and attended the San Francisco Art Institute and Brandeis University. Exhibition history includes solo and group exhibitions at the Kentler International Drawing Space, Smack Mellon, and the Sculpture Center.