Sikkema Jenkins & Co. is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new works by Terry Haggerty, on view May 30 through July 12, 2019. This is Haggerty’s third solo show with Sikkema Jenkins & Co.
Terry Haggerty’s paintings reveal the multi-dimensional possibilities within painting – bold color is used to enliven and give volume and depth to positive and negative space. A series of monochrome lines, corners, and edges fold around one another, activating gaps between geometric planes of color. Haggerty’s works embrace the tension between two-dimensional outline and three-dimensional form, creating images characterized as “half object, half painting.” The paint is meticulously applied on flat, shaped wooden panels, layered with a non-reflective varnish which removes any trace of the artist’s hand. What remains is an image of machine-like precision.
The composition of Haggerty’s images recalls the effect of trompe l’oeil in painting, and forced perspective in architecture. Volume and depth are reconfigured and re-contextualized upon the planar surface. The visual conflict between flatness and angularity shifts according to the viewer’s position. To look at Haggerty’s images is to embrace the ambiguity of form, and the illusory potential of shape and space.
In a shift from his previous works, these new paintings incorporate a distinct variety of forms beyond linear abstraction. Wide streams of color wind around parallel paths of negative space, carving out distinct visual landscapes. In his monumental wall painting [title], lines of color are meticulously folded and curved around and upon each other. The result, at such a scale, presents a unique understanding of architectural composition as adapted for the two-dimensional surface.
Terry Haggerty was born in 1970 in London, and studied at the Cheltenham School of Art, Gloucestershire. Recent solo exhibitions include End to End, Dolceacqua Arte Contemporanea, Italy; von Bartha, Basel; PS Projects, Amsterdam; and Still Motion, Ivory Press, Madrid. Permanent commissions include works for Munich Re Art Collection, London, Sammlung Haubrok, Dussselfdorf, and numerous private collections. Commissioned wall drawings include Dallas Cowboys Stadium, Arlington, Texas; Munich Re, London and Roche Diagnostics, Indianapolis. Haggerty is the recipient of several awards including the For-Site Foundation Award (2009), John Anson Kittredge Award (2003); and the Natwest Art Prize (1999). He currently lives and works in Berlin.