PRESS RELEASE
Margaret Thatcher Projects is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by American artist Adam Fowler, Escaping Forward. This is the artist’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery and includes Fowler’s first large scale wall installation, Untitled (41 Layers). Here, Fowler has developed a system to counter the limitations of size in the paper he works with in order to complete his largest composition to date. Spanning a width of 10 feet, it is composed of forty-one precisely cut sheets of paper pinned directly onto the gallery wall.
The system Fowler developed for the installation inspired his two subsequent series of drawings on view, 9 Imperfect Compositionsand Escaping Forward. Eliminating the variation of scale—all works in each group of drawings are the same size—Fowler uses sweeping lines and gestures as a response to the internal (Escaping Forward) or external (9 Imperfect Compositions) shape or boundary of each drawing.
Fowler’s newest works carry a style that has increased in complexity not based on layers of paper, which have become more spare, but in the confidence behind his drawings that frequently swirl from one edge directly to another and in his more open compositions where empty spaces are allowed to highlight the graceful loops and arches of his drawings.
After determining the scale, composition and architecture of each piece, Fowler starts by putting pencil to paper, creating gestural drawings in graphite. The initial drawings are then released with an X-acto knife so that all unmarked spaces are meditatively and meticulously removed by hand. Then, the resulting sheets are carefully stacked to complete each piece. Aspects of collage and sculpture are invoked in the stacking of the sheets and the 3-dimensional quality of Fowler’s work.
Adam Fowler was born in Fairfax, VA and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. Fowler is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including a Fellowship in Drawing from the New York Foundation for the Arts (2011) and a Pollack Krasner Foundation Grant (2007). His works have been exhibited in many public institutions such as the Museum of Arts and Design (New York, NY), the Drawing Center (New York, NY), and the Weatherspoon Art Museum (Greensboro, NC.) His work has been published in the Harvard Review and reviewed by The New York Times, Art News, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Village Voice and many others.