For ‘Flash Art’ Magazine
Five years ago, the sun rose on a group of young sculptors from L.A. who shared nothing so much as a new look. Jason Meadows was one of the promising talents with a willingness to experiment with modernism and a gift for crafting objects at once familiar and strange. From this initial impulse, Meadows kept the momentum going with ‘Microcarving,’ his second solo show at Tanya Bonakdar in as many years.
The new work breaks loose from the strict minimalism and control of his previous sculpture and supplies plenty of evidence of the artist’s hand and his trips to the hardware store. Unhidden nuts and bolts, wooden joints taped together and hardware with the manufacturers labels still stuck on, along with frequent use of a black marker pen create a tension between the overall impression and the ‘micro,’ surface details.
Most of the sculpture is at the average human height (150-170 cm) making intimate viewing easy, and the shapes sometimes mimic the human form in a way reminiscent of Modernist sculptor David Smith. ‘Soldier of Fortune’ and ‘Upskirt’ are horizontal constructions of wooden beams, the former rough and tumble with protruding nails, the later involving a small square platform on wooden ‘legs’, draped by a canvas suggesting a dangerously short skirt.
Canvas reappears on the floor under ‘In the Process of Becoming’, a three-legged construction suggesting an artist’s easel with a shelf holding a Polaroid of a barred window in the artist’s studio. Is the angst-ridden ‘prison window’ and the triumph of the easel as it rests on top of canvas an ironic take on the creative process? Sculptures like ‘Albatross,’ in which a jaggedly cut piece of white, laminated composition board replicates ruffled feathers, suggest that Meadows is a playfully self-aware artist. But one thing is clear. Unlike the ancient mariner who wears the albatross around his neck for his sins, Meadows’ sculpture doesn’t languish in the doldrums.
