Process and Delight: The New P&D

The artists in Process and Delight: The New P&D might be seen as descendents of the Pattern and Decoration (P & D) movement of the 1970’s. The original artists of the P & D movement were pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable as an art vocabulary during that time. Their unapologetic embrace of a purely aesthetic beauty often combined with materials and techniques historically associated with “womens work” stood in sharp contrast to the rigors of minimalism. The artists of Process and Delight: The New P&D are building on that history while investigating their own definitions of beauty using repetition and obsessive attention to detail to illuminate their process driven works. 

These artists are maximalists, concerned with visually lavish surfaces and entry into the worlds they create through pattern, repetition and meticulousness. They are cramming details onto these surfaces that are unified by complexity of form and content.  

Process and Delight is honored to include Arlene Slavin’s work in this exhibit.  Slavin, who participated in groundbreaking Pattern and Decoration Movement shows, is known for her use of luminous colors, the grid and her distinctive treatment of transparency in paint. 

Pattern, nature and the human propensity to create meaning from what we see all intersect in the work of Dee Shapiro, Patricia Fabricant, Kit Warren and Seren Morey. 

Sui Park and Jaynie Crimmins each make their work out of consumer products — Park from mass produced materials and Crimmins from post-consumer waste —  transforming ordinary, often overlooked materials into intricate constructions. 

Caroline Wayne, David Ambrose, Charles Clary and Theda Sandiford all draw on childhood memories and/or trauma or microaggressions to produce baroque and beautiful work, allowing others access into the darker aspects of their experience. 

Physics informs the drawings of Amy Cheng and Chris Arabadjis, creating new, dynamic worlds that occupy an ambiguous middle ground between representation and abstraction. 

Although their practices differ, Marcy Rosenblat and Oriane Stender use textiles and paint to produce subtle, layered and ethereal feeling work. 

The works of these 15 artists have their origins in personal history, nature, geometry and mystery. Their surfaces are lush and complicated, either abstract or representational — all combining beauty with excess. This new iteration of P & D brings together like minds, connecting their art in a compelling recognition of the intersection of art, craft, technique and intent. 

Image Credit: Kit Warren “Continental Drift (chaos theory)” pigment, silica medium on paper,  30 x 40 in