Elisabeth Kley and Sanou Oumar

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Elisabeth Kley and Sanou Oumar
Installation View

Sanou Oumar and Elisabeth Kley
Organized by Matt Connors
April 14 through May 26, 2019
Opening Reception: Sunday April 14. 4-6 PM

Rules can be liberating, a set of limits within which to create. Establishing clear conditions within their artistic practices, Elisabeth Kley and Sanou Oumar work with self-imposed restriction in order to build a space for the spontaneous and imaginative to find a platform for display. Both artists build their artistic languages from something found; for Kley, her research into historic ornamentation, for Oumar, the found objects he traces in his drawings. This restriction creates a meditative textural repetition in which moments of disruption intervene to inform the formal with the personal, the structural with the expressive.

Sanou Oumar’s drawings are built from his set of drawing tools collected from daily life in New York. Popsicle sticks, washers, a plastic floss pick become simple shapes, circles, lines, curves, edges, as Oumar traces and rearranges these essential elements into a staggering variety of compositions. While the shapes originate in found objects, the compositions are deeply personal. Oumar came to the US recently as an asylum-seeker from Burkina Faso, hoping to pursue his dream of becoming an architect. The drawings, reminiscent of mandalas, contain memories, stories and influences from Oumar’s life. One drawing might be imbued with Oumar’s late mother’s presence, while another, an interpretation of the suspension cables of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Elisabeth Kley’s ceramic vessels and drawings operate within a limited palette of white, blues and blacks. Informed by her research into European, Islamic, Byzantine and Asian historic ornamentation; the motifs on the pieces are powerful, carrying the exotic sensuousness of this history of visual pleasure. Reflecting Kley’s personal inquiry into desire and the decorative, the colors, patterns and forms become elements to reorganize and recombine. Through this form of play, new avenues of enjoyment emerge within this ancient vocabulary.

– Marina Caron

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Sanou Oumar
2/8/19, 2019
Pen and colored pencil on paper
29 x 23 inches

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Sanou Oumar
1/21/19, 2019
Pen and marker on paper
28 x 22 inches

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Sanou Oumar
1/28/19, 2019
Pen and marker on paper
28 x 21 inches

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Sanou Oumar
1/26/19, 2019
Pen on paper
28 x 22 inches

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Sanou Oumar
11/10/18, 2018
Pen and marker on paper
28 x 22 inches

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Sanou Oumar
9/29/18, 2018
Pen and marker on paper
30 x 22 inches

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Sanou Oumar
4/1/17, 2017
Pen on paper
19.5 x 25.5 inches

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Sanou Oumar
2/21/19, 2019
Pen, marker, and colored pencil on paper board
25 x 20 inches

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Sanou Oumar
2/20/19, 2019
Pen and marker on paper board
15 x 20 inches

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Sanou Oumar
2/17/19, 2019
Pen on paper board
16 x 20 inches

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Sanou Oumar
2/17/19, 2019
Pen on paper board
20 x 16 inches

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Elisabeth Kley
Shosoin Flask, 2015
Glazed earthenware
15 × 10 × 4 inches

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Elisabeth Kley
Flask with Grape Leaves, 2016
Glazed earthenware
17 × 12 ½ × 7 ½ inches

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Elisabeth Kley
Two Snake Cylinder, 2016
Glazed earthenware
7 ¼ × 3 ⅛ × 3 inches

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Elisabeth Kley
Small Bottle with Hanging Flowers, 2017
Glazed eartheware
11 ¼ × 8 × 7 ½ inches

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Elisabeth Kley
Small Bottle with Wide Flowers, 2017
Glazed eartheware
11 ¼ × 8 × 8 inches

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Elisabeth Kley
Charles Rennie Mackintosh Bottle Curved Inward White, 2018
Glazed earthenware
11 × 10 × 10 inches

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Elisabeth Kley
Square Bakst Sleeping Princess, 2018
Glazed earthenware
15 × 7 ½ × 7 ½ inches

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Elisabeth Kley
Roman Architectural Fresco Section with Garlands, 2018
Four glazed earthenware tiles
24 ¾ × 18 ¼ inches

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Elisabeth Kley
Roman Architectural Fresco Section with One Winged Animal, 2018
Four glazed earthenware tiles
24 ½ × 18 ½ inches

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Elisabeth Kley
Roman Architectural Fresco Section with Tall Plant, 2018
Four glazed earthenware tiles
24 ¾ × 18 ¼ inches

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Elisabeth Kley
Roman Architectural Fresco Section with Two Winged Statues, 2018
Four glazed earthenware tiles
24 ½ × 18 ¾ inches

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Elisabeth Kley
Etruscan Double Stack, 2018
Glazed earthenware
31 × 9 ½ × 9 inches

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Elisabeth Kley
Triple Stack Vase, 2018
Glazed earthenware
34 1/2 × 17 × 17 inches