Show Pony Gallery, Santa Fe
March 23 – May 5, 2019
Vortexting The Muses is the inaugural show of Niomi Fawn’s new brick-and-mortar curation project in Santa Fe, Show Pony Gallery. Drawings and paintings on paper, wood, glass, and brick by artist Timothy Jason Reed fill the gallery space in this solo exhibition. Show Pony is a small space, and it is an achievement that the forty-eight works do not overwhelm the room, a testament to Fawn’s curatorial aesthetic and strength, with a nod to their interior design background. Fawn’s efforts to create an inviting and accessible art experience, which challenge and shift other visible art paradigms in Santa Fe, are successful in this inaugural show: Reed’s work is playful, contemplative, and wandering, and invites the viewer to explore the intricate space and form that his internal process takes when translated into visual works.
Reed is a meditative artist who works to define his life, whether making art or not, through a practice of self-cultivation. Vortexting The Muses is a body of work that represents both an effort towards and an achievement of an artistic flow state. Reed has made hundreds of drawings, a cross section of which are included in the show, as an exercise in un-thinking: the goal in making these drawings was to cultivate a reflexive practice in which Reed could create without relying on the force of his mind to direct his process. The resulting works have a remarkable relational quality through which the viewer can witness Reed delighting in his medium and material. Avoiding representation, Reed’s mark-making creates embodied images, ones that are suggestive of form and movement but that resist an explicit identity. Each drawing reads as though it was built, where each line or brushstroke inspires the one that will succeed it. While some compositions are densely packed masses of line and texture, others explore space with a delicate simplicity that offers vital breathing room. Reed’s drawings are offset by a row of painted pairs of bricks. Simple and hardline geometric patterns adorn the brick faces and are a quiet contemplation of moments observed within the drawings. Self-referencing and pixelation run deep through all of Reed’s work, resulting in an intimate viewing experience wherein the viewer can witness the incremental inner workings of an ever-evolving artistic practice.
8 x 8 in, framed.
Reed applies his artistic skill of non-action as honed through his drawing practice across media. Balancing intent and surrender, Reed’s paintings occupy a similar terrain of amoeboid movement and form while adding dynamic—and sometimes surprising—color relationships. Reed’s “reverse glass paintings” push his commitment to unlearning his craft one step further through a process that effectively restricts his visual comprehension of how a painting evolves. Working on a pane of glass, Reed adds layers of paint so that each subsequent layer obscures the image that will be revealed when the pane is turned over. “Working blind” in this way prevents Reed from planning his next move. Through paint Reed continues to explore his practice of finding flow, revealing a new kind of depth and environment. Embedded in the work is a wandering mystery and movement as relationships between color and form unfold with a weight that is distinctly different from Reed’s drawings. It’s a pleasure to witness him revealing more subject matter and material as he engages further in this meditation.
Vortexting The Muses is a visually diverse and accessible show and, as such, is an exemplary opening exhibition for Show Pony Gallery. Niomi Fawn has curated an individual show that allows its viewers an intimate but broad experience, one that is akin to a studio visit—not because the show is informal, but because it is so particular and specific to who Timothy Reed is as an artist. Reed’s work tirelessly explores his devotion to removing his ego from his practice, and the resulting imagery is as unassuming and vast as any spiritual practice. After Vortexting The Muses, Santa Fe can only look forward to more singular, inclusive, and community-driven events and art experiences at Show Pony Gallery.
Closing reception: May 5, 1-4 pm.
