Hilary Berseth

HILARY BERSETH December 10, 2011 – January 22, 2012 | 11 Rivington St, NY

Eleven Rivington is pleased to present the second solo exhibition of Hilary Berseth, on view from December 10, 2011 – January 22, 2012. The exhibition will feature Berseth’s graphite drawings. Working with the most elemental of artist’s tools and techniques – pencil and paper, a projected image rendered in graphite hatchings – Berseth’s drawings balance imagery and illusion with the viewer’s optical perception. Six intimately scaled works on paper superimpose two drawings over one another, fusing the images together through shading, combining them into a hypothetical space. The artist’s studio appears in some drawings as a framing image; another features a scan of the artist’s retina. Using a similar strategy, Berseth combines simple paper constructions with careful shading to create volumetric trompe l’oeil objects – Archimedean spirals, a fractaline segment of a dogwood branch. These objects, like the drawings, hover between the concrete and the ethereal.

Berseth’s art explores the possibilities of creating form by coupling processes with systematic plans and programs. This is a model for nature, and Berseth’s work often employs natural means or simulates natural phenomena. In past series, the created sculptures of honeybee combs and quasi-organic metal objects grown in chemicals; these works set the artist’s intention against the demands of nature and chance. The viewer witnessed these earlier works from the outside, and the probable forces that formed them are unseen. In the new body of work, Berseth opens his practice to the viewer and asks us to complete and expand it through our own perceptual means.

Hilary Berseth was born 1979, educated at Columbia University, NY, and lives and works in Bucks County, PA. Reviews and articles on his work have appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Time Out New York, and The Village Voice, among others.