Leigh Suggs: TOAST
Massey Klein Gallery is pleased to present TOAST, a solo exhibition of new work by Leigh Suggs hosted in Massey Klein’s intimate east gallery room. The exhibition will be on view by appointment from Friday, December 18th until Saturday, January 30th, 2021. The gallery will host an opening reception day from 1-6pm on Sunday, December 20th. Please email info@masseyklein.com to schedule an in-person viewing or visit the gallery’s website to experience a virtual walk-through of the exhibition.
Leigh Suggs channels her fascination with the mystery and psychology of sight through cut paper works and large-scale installations. She obscures normal perception, manipulating her materials as if optical illusions. By cutting and weaving intricate patterns, she animates painted acrylic on Yupo (a thick, plastic-based paper). The intangible and inexpressible optical illusions created in each piece lure in the viewer, pulling them into an experience of seeing that is at once immediate and elusive. Although two dimensional in nature, Suggs transforms the works on paper into sculpture-like forms through her manipulation of shadows, applied color, and reflections. The individual is left to decipher the piece’s existence as sculpture or flatwork, illusion or concrete, much as Suggs’ practice continually asks “What am I really seeing?”
In Suggs’ newest body of work, TOAST, the artist explores the nature of distraction. In our present day, we experience a bombardment of information. This happens through the news (information fatigue), social media (zombie scrolling), and the brevity at which we focus our attention (TL;DR). Our emotional brains have not evolved to keep up with the overload, and so we stop processing; we become distracted bystanders. Suggs illustrates her exploration with distraction through patterns: arching, maze-like constructions that are lively and hypnotic. Spots, dots, and zig-zags roam in and out of focus, leaving a visual residue that challenges the reality of the lines, colors, and patterns seen in each piece.
Leigh Suggs received her BFA from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 2003 and her MFA from the Virginia Commonwealth University in 2015. The artist has been awarded several grants and honors, including the North Carolina Fellowship Award, a city of Richmond CultureWorks Grant, and a residency at the Quirk Hotel & Gallery in Richmond, VA. Her work is a part of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Weatherspoon Museum and corporate collections including the Federal Reserve Bank, Capital One, Markel Corporation, Suntrust Bank, and Fidelity Investments. The artist lives and works in Richmond, Virginia. This is her first solo exhibition in New York.
Massey Klein Gallery is located at 124 Forsyth St. New York, NY 10002. For inquiries regarding works available, please contact info@masseyklein.com.
