KATY COWAN LINE GROUND FIGURE

By Stephanie Bailey

It all began, as if it o en does, with the line. Or rather, with the embodiment of the line, which in Katy Cowan’s case, was the rope. In 2017, Cowan created a body of work that represented a challenge to herself: to use rope to create minimal line drawings. The result were bronze casts of fibrous cables arranged in clumps, tangles, and loops, which Cowan painted brightly with oil and enamel spray paint, creating compositions that honoured the line as the foundation upon which all representation unfolds. Among them was Wheels and Scales and Spray Rope (Walking Position) (2017), a bronze cast of a long, vertical loop, with delicate, solidified spla er extensions modelled from plasticine extending from this central cable, upon which colourful blocks of paint have been applied, including a section of stripes moving from black to white.

Works that followed explored how far the rope could go as a manifestation of mark making in compositions that collapse two and three-dimensions into enigmatic relief. (as listening) Position (2018), presents an entanglement of rope in various states of unravel pressed into an irregular, plasticine ground. The resulting cast invokes the delicate shape of a rectangular board dipped into acid to create irregular voids throughout—a feeling of dissolution that is amplified by the paint coating the surface to create a luminous gradation that moves from lime green and canary yellow to a hot coral pink.

Both sculpture and painting, the cast aluminium itself; as far (2019), foregrounds the line completely. The long, multi-pronged route of a series of cast ropes becomes the canvas upon which a medley of colours—greens, blues, reds—glow alongside divergent trails of graphite and greyscale. A collection of these hues appear in organic tabs on one end of the composition, recalling the colour treatments that characterise the works Cowan created while living in California amid pandemic lockdowns.

There, the artist instilled allusions to the landscape in expressive, organic geometries that utilise ropes on cardboard to create cast aluminium surfaces upon which vibrant tonal masses invoke not only the colour of the Golden State’s inimitable Redwood forests and azure Pacific coastlines, but the disasters that would befall those landscapes. Yet ridges, hills (burn and tumult) (2021), is a clump of cast rope painted the colours of an inferno. Thick, tight, twists painted burgundy appear almost intestinal; while at points, unravelled fibres form singular trails illuminated by their bright coral and white treatment over fields of graphite grey.

itself; as far is among the forms composing gods on a bridge, which foregrounds a new body of work that represents something of a departure for Cowan. Indeed, as much as the artist was surprised by how the landscape entered her work in California, the turn her work took a er moving to Berlin was equally unexpected. Daily hikes in California were replaced with walks in a city where, as Cowan observes, “images bleed out of every surface.” Observing an urban landscape defined by texture and depth—of marks layered upon marks that speak to the density of effects and affects contained within every nook—Cowan began to find Berlin’s surfaces reflecting themselves back not only in the casts she creates to paint on, but in the works on paper she produces as part of her studio practice. Where drawings once emphasised the minimalist line of a looping rope, more recent works on paper express a pointillist depth, with volume built up through staccato marks.

In turn, gouges and pock-marks began appearing on the cardboard compositions Cowan would cast into aluminium before painting them; textural references to the city’s accumulation of hardened and weathered surfaces, which bear the traces of deep geological time as much as individual and collective histories—of climate, war, modernisation, and being itself—including the monumental figurative sculptures that represent a constant presence across Berlin. gods on a bridge alludes to a group of such figures that bu ress both sides of the Carl-ZuckmayerBrücke at Rudolph-Wilde Park, which the artist passes daily. Sculptures by Richard Guhr that depict a series of Tritons carrying a nymph each on their backs. These bodies are made of grey stone, with layers of graffiti on their bases constituting a second skin—surfaces, as with the city at large, that Cowan has abstracted for compositions which signal a move into figuration.

This move—unexpected, Cowan says—has manifested in a marked shi in the artist’s process. Where Cowan would previously create the surfaces to cast without knowing how she would work on them once rendered into aluminum, these new pieces saw the artist engage with compositional form during the initial stages of development, creating a more preconstructed image as a result. Perhaps it is in this shi where Cowan situates the figurative turn in her work, in which the stone bodies she passes everyday have manifested as sculptural abstractions and fragmented, embodied landscapes. “I’m realising that being open to the subject ma er around me made me more open to le ing the forms for the cast be dictated by that,” Cowan explains. The diptych when stone entwines is perhaps the most figurative of these new compositions—the shape of two bodies is built up with a dense and exuberant layering of tonally contrasting lines, among them, slim trails of rope that blend into Cowan’s cast and painted contours.

That sense of contouring manifests across gods on a bridge, where paint and graphite marks build volume upon cast volume to represent form as much as activity in space. Such that each work constitutes at once a fleshing out of figures as much as a mapping of movements— whether bodies in a park or city street or marks that dance across the capacious plane of representation itself, where line, ground, and figure collapse into a vortex of intuitive becoming.

Stephanie Bailey

“gods on a bridge, the tangle and eternal motion of two figures entwined in daily life, bound in stone, moving through history. they are us, we are them, they are something else, intangible. Through the crevices of bent arms, arched backs, proud and humble chins, repose, strength, love, fear, disinterest, I watch the seasons change, the clouds move through them, people of Berlin coming and going – resting, reposing, drinking, laughing, and the city humming by. They remain. They are above me, they are me, they live through the city, yet they always remain out of reach.”

—Katy Cowan

Katy Cowan

Born in Lake, Geneva, WI in 1982

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Education

2014

MFA, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA

2004

BFA, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA

2003

Summer Semester, Burren College of Art, Ballyvaughan, Ireland

Solo Exhibitions

2023

“gods on a bridge,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

2022

“glow like stone,” Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

“as the sun chases the unfurling fray,” Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2021

“breath shapes,” Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “winds glow unceasing,” Document Space, Chicago, IL

2020

“Suns Pass Flat,” Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “the blue sun moans,” Kate Werble Gallery, New York, NY

2017

“reflected-into-themselves-into-reflected,” Lynden Sculpture Garden, Milwaukee, WI

“On ropes and bronze…,” Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles, CA

2015

“The Studio, The Sketch,” Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles, CA

“BRICKED,” Ki redge Gallery, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA

“LONGS/HAPPENS,” Green Gallery South, Oak Park, IL

“Compressional(s),” Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles, CA

2014

“Lean-Twos,” ltd los angeles, Los Angeles, CA

“Togetherers,” Bolsky Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA

2009

“Eyes to the Unknown,” Green Gallery, Milwaukee, WI

2008

“Gestural,” Flatfile Galleries, Chicago, IL

2007

“New Paintings,” Caro d’Offay Gallery, Chicago, IL

Group Exhibitions

2023

“Pocket Universe,” Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

“Soulscapes” (curated by Uwe Henneken), Meyer Riegger, Berlin, Germany

2022

“We Became the River on Fire,” Los Angeles Valley College, Valley Glen, CA

“Lines of Thought: Gestural Abstraction,” Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA

2021

“Recent Acquisitions,” Milwaukee Museum of Art, Milwaukee, WI

“From the Collection of Anonymous,” North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND

“Mirages,” Crisp-Ellert Art Museum, Flagler College, St. Augustine, FL

2020

“From Within,” Philip Martin Gallery. Los Angeles, CA

“Brathwaite, Cheng, Coulis, Cowan, Dodge, Dove, Glabush, Huckby, Jorden, Luck, O’Neill, Petit-Frère,” Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

“Le , Right, Le , Le ,” The Green Gallery, Milwaukee, WI

2019

“Centennial: 100 Years of Otis College Alumni,” Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA

“something of a body, of a tempo,” Et al., San Francisco, CA

“The Day in the Night,” Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2018

“How They Ran,” Over the Influence, Los Angeles, CA

“Do Something To It. Do Something Else To It.,” Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

“EDDYSROOM @ Usable Space,” Usable Space, Milwaukee, WI

“Reunion Tour,” Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, IL

“Some of Our Favorite Things,” Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA

2017

“As if form were some pitcher,” Fourteen30 Contemporary, Portland, OR

“Skip Tracer,” M. LeBlanc Gallery, Chicago, IL

“Irene with an I,” Woodland Pa ern, Milwaukee, WI

2016

“TOP HEAVY,” Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles, CA

The Suburban, Milwaukee, WI

“Wisconsin Triennial,” Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI

“PDF-Objects,” Mana Contemporary, Chicago, IL

“Jack and Diane,” Kate Werble Gallery, New York, NY

“Imperceptibly and Slowly Opening” (curated by Caroline Picard), Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA

“Memory Theater,” Upfor Gallery, Portland, OR

“Home Improvement,” Bahamas Biennale, Detroit, MI

2015

“Try again. Fail again. Fail be er.,” Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles, CA

“Condensed Ma er Community,” Synchroton Radiation Center, Stoughton, WI

“The Great Good Place,” Threewalls, Chicago, IL

“Uncanny,” MuseuMM, Los Angeles, CA

“Imperceptibly and Slowly Opening” (organized by Green Lantern), 2337, Chicago, IL

“The Great Poor Farm Experiment VII: Listening and Making Sound,” Poor Farm, Manawa, WI

2014

“work: work,” Devening Projects, Chicago, IL

“False Scent,” 321 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

“2732: Katy Cowan and Ross Ianna i,” Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles, CA

“The Fi h Wall,” Elephant Art Space, Los Angeles, CA

2013

“MAS ATTACK,” Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA

“GLAMFA (Greater Los Angeles MFA),” California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA

“Come As You Are…,” Los Angeles Nomadic Division, Los Angeles, CA

“Snake Road,” Bolsky Gallery, Otis College Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA

2012

“GLAMFA (Greater Los Angeles MFA),” University of Long Beach, Long Beach, CA

2011

“Living With Them,” Roots and Culture, Chicago, IL

2010

“Agency,” Agency Gallery, London, UK

“Braided Beard,” The Hills Esthetic Center, Chicago, IL

“Love and Heartbreak,” Metro Gallery, Baltimore, MD

2009

“You Can Build a House,” The Pigeon Wing, London, UK

“Sandusky,” Caro d’Offay Gallery, Chicago, IL

Curatorial Projects

2020 - 2016

Director, The Outlet Gallery, Milwaukee, WI

2017

“Water & Dreams,” Chicken Coop Contemporary, Portland, OR; traveled to Green Gallery West, Milwaukee, WI

2015

“Within and Out,” Marian Art Gallery, Milwaukee, WI

2011 - 2009

Co-Director, The Hills Esthetic Center, Chicago, IL

Select Collections

Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA

Lynden Sculpture Garden, Milwaukee, WI

Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI

Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN

North Dakota Museum of Art, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND

Northwestern Mutual Insurance, Milwaukee, WI

U.S. Embassy, Maputo, Mozambique

Published on the occasion of the exhibition

Katy Cowan

gods on a bridge

16 March - 22 April 2023

Miles McEnery Gallery

515 West 22nd Street New York NY 10011 tel +1 212 445 0051 www.milesmcenery.com

Publication © 2023 Miles McEnery Gallery

All rights reserved

Essay © 2023 Stephanie Cristello

Essay © 2023 Stephanie Bailey

Director of Exhibitions

Anastasija Jevtovic, New York, NY

Publications & Archival Assistant

Julia Schlank, New York, NY

Photography by Sco Cowan, Berlin, Germany

David Robert Ellio , Los Angeles, CA

Catalogue Layout by Sean Kennedy, New York, NY

Special thanks to Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

ISBN: 978-0-9850184-3-6

Cover: whisper to night, (detail), 2023