Berlin

Jessica Rankin | Lacunae

27.04.–01.06.2013

“Sometimes a landscape seems to be less a setting for the life of its inhabitants than a curtain behind which their struggles, achievements and accidents take place. For those who, with the inhabitants, are behind the curtains, landmarks are no longer geographic but also biographical and personal.”

The oeuvre of Jessica Rankin (born 1971) assumes shape in front of the viewer’s eyes like a network of memories, associations and diagrams. It stretches out on the paper like a landscape. Her work moves between the personal and the geographic spheres. In formal terms it takes its orientation from the stellar constellations, but following its own language and structure.

Although it is her “embroideries” that have made her famous, works which demanded a persistent, painstaking approach, carlier | gebauer is now showing some of her new drawings on paper. Now, Rankin is using a different medium, working with crayons, paper and watercolors. At first glance, letters and language are only to be found in the title. On the subject of sewing Rankin has said that this involves a constant, repetitive movement, returning like a word that lingers on your mind. In a similar way her work revolves around a center and, at the same time, moves on its own periphery.

Installation Views

  • Jessica Rankin, Lacunae, exhibition view at carlier | gebauer, 2013

  • Kirsi Mikkola, Qumquat, exhibition view at carlier | gebauer, 2013