Alex Ebstein - Plastic Images

Alex Ebstein: Plastic Images Rosenberg Gallery

“No object is mysterious.

The mystery is your eye.”

Elizabeth Bowen

Small Gestures, 2013 hand-cut PVC yoga mats and acrylic on wood panel 36” x 24”

Lost U in a Blind Spot, 2015 mixed media on panel 20” x 16”

Untitled (Couples’ Yoga #2), 2014 hand-cut PVC yoga mats on wood panel 72” x 48”

Artist’s Statement Visual perception is both a shared and unique human experience, a sense through which we are simultaneously unified and aware of our differences, delineated by personality, taste, and the precise mechanics of our individual visual systems. While an assumed perfection and clarity often surround the notion of “vision” or “seeing,” apparatuses employed to adjust the shortcomings of the eye are adjustable, the subtle degrees of variation in (or absence of) this sense makes for infinite visual impressions of the world.

Abstraction acknowledges this vast diversity, with imagery on the slippery barrier between observational and subconscious, allowing individualized experiences and focus.

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The title of the exhibit, Plastic Images, refers to both the flexible nature of perception and the substrate material used to create my work.

Biographically, my interest in perception as a subject within abstraction is linked to dramatic shifts in my own vision over the past six years.

My practice has varied, making room for these changes, relating to material and the process of forming new, unfamiliar, focal lengths. In many cases, my works have tethered the visual to the tactile, using non-traditional materials as stand-ins for formal qualities of painting—twines as line weights, solid and patterned textiles or plastics as background, foreground, and shaded texture.

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Floater Index, 2015 hand-cut PVC yoga mats and twine on wood panel 24” x 20”

Untitled (Couples’ Yoga #1), 2014 hand-cut PVC yoga mats on wood panel 72” x 48”

Mirage, 2015 hand-cut PVC yoga mats, wood, acrylic, canvas, twine, hydrographic film, and acrylic on wood panel 37” x 32”

Stretching Specters, 2013 hand-cut PVC yoga mats and nickel-plated grommets 72� x 54� (apx)

Removed from their utility, the PVC yoga mats cover the surface of each piece with a pronounced, tactile grid that is inaccessible, except for its visual effect. Thick shapes float over the shallow surface—deadpan, slightly sardonic, a foil to the illusionistic success of the images. With their own associations and caveats, the bold, monochrome yoga mats— cut and inlaid into a single, flat surface—are a loaded and specific material through which to explore the building of images and physicality of painting.

— Alex Ebstein

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15487-3855 06/15

Alex Ebstein: Plastic Images June 10 – August 31, 2015 Artist’s Reception

Wednesday, July 8, 6-8 p.m.

Plastic Images is a satellite exhibition in conjunction with Artscape and the Gallery Network presented by M&T Bank. Ms. Ebstein is a Goucher alumna, Class of 2007.

Rosenberg Gallery Directions

Gallery Hours

Baltimore Beltway, I-695, to exit 27A. Make first left onto campus.

9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Monday – Friday 410.337.6477

The exhibit is free and open to the public.

The Rosenberg Gallery program is funded with the assistance of grants from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency funded by the state of Maryland and the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Baltimore County Commission on the Arts and Sciences.

goucher.edu/rosenberg

cover image: Golden Hour, 2015, hand-cut PVC yoga mats, twine, and acrylic on panel, 20” x 16”