MK Guth | Distant Dreamer
August 1 - September 28, 2024
First Thursday opening: August 1, 5:30 - 7:30 pm
Elizabeth Leach Gallery is also excited to present MK Guth, Distant Dreamer, an exhibition of new multi-media works that recall and expand upon recent and ongoing projects within the artist’s wide-reaching oeuvre.
In this impressive gathering of recent work, Guth has revisited her own archive and cherry-picked some of the classic material and thematic highlights that have helped define her output over the last 30 years. Full of adjacent tangents and aestheticized renditions, the result is what one could call a “performance” by an indomitable artist very much connected to her own thesis.
Her forms and gestures seem endless, but there are certain strands that remain constant, one of these signatures being her use of fibers. Guth assumed this thread again to create two stunning, braided tapestries that refer to specific galaxies as observed from Earth. These knotted, wall-mounted reliefs are loaded with sensuous tangles and a patina developed by being bent out of shape through the laborious process of articulating forms outside of their material’s intended use.
Guth’s work often contains strong performative elements, eventuating into objects and ephemera that are activated by social contact, but here she turns to a solitary studio practice that emphasizes a more literal application of materials, and the consequent production of discrete, disparate sculptures. Among them includes an ongoing series of work that involves repurposed chandeliers. Dangling shoulder height and embellished with found and clashing pendalogues, these gaudy relics of yesteryear wear opulence in abject defiance - their utility minimized, grandiosity tamped and our physical relationship to them confused. Taken all together, we see an artist’s cosmic musing and navel-gazing manifest.
Small shifts in what is familiar amplify human presence and speak to the intricacies of social relations in MK Guth’s work. Guth is a visual artist working in sculpture, performance and interactive projects. She has exhibited and performed with numerous galleries and institutions in the US and abroad including, The Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, OH, The Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC, Boise Art Museum, Yerba Buena, in San Francisco, Henry Art Museum, Seattle, WA, and the Art Museum of Sonoma, Santa Rosa, CA, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC, The Melbourne International Arts Festival, Australia, Nottdance Festival, Nottingham, England, Swiss Institute, NYC, Gallery-Pfeister, Gudhjem Denmark, Franklin Parrasch Gallery NYC, White Columns, NYC, The Art Production Fund (NYC / Las Vegas), and the Akron Art Museum, Ohio. She is a recipient of a Ford Family Foundation Fellowship, Bonnie Bronson Award, a Betty Bowen Special Recognition Award through the Seattle Art Museum and an Award of Merit from the Bellevue Art Museum. Guth is represented by the Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland OR and Cristin Tierney, NYC. Guth is Emeritus faculty at the Pacific Northwest College at Willamette University in Portland Oregon.