NEW YORK, NY.- Simon Lee Gallery, New York, presents Since Last We Met, an inter-generational group exhibition organized by Debra Singer in collaboration with Simon Lee Gallery.

Since Last We Met centers around an imagined set of metaphorical conversations among artists who experiment with notions of materiality. Blurring boundaries between painting and sculpture as well as between craft and fine art forms, artists from three generations are put in discussion with one another, as they transform found and commonplace objects into new works, alternatively reflecting uncanny sensibilities or an embrace of cultural or gendered embodied identities. With works dating from the 1970s to the present, the show reflects eclectic material sensibilities generated from production methods that are alternatively virtuosic and hand-crafted, on the one hand, or industrial and ad hoc, on the other. Among the artists on view are Anna Betbeze, Elaine Cameron-Weir, Verena Dengler, ektor garcia, Mike Kelley, Eric N. Mack, Robert Morris, Robert Rauschenberg, and Michael E. Smith.

From the vibrant sewn fabric collages of Eric N. Mack and the distressed flokati rugs of Anna Betbeze to the layered silkscreened textiles of Robert Rasuchenberg, many of the artists interrogate conventions of Abstract Expressionist and Color Field painting through an embrace of unheralded materials, collage techniques, and more free-form, presentational modes. In analogous ways, Verena Dengler counter related Modernist traditions – accentuating references to craft and the decorative arts, creative activities historically relegated to women’s work and domesticity. Triangulating these dialogues are works by Elaine Cameron-Weir, ektor garcia, Robert Morris, and Michael E. Smith, all of whom construct surreal references to the body through sculptural forms. As a whole, the included works embrace a sense of intimacy, an appreciation for the previously marginalized, and often a common interest in utilizing found fabric, clothing, and textiles. When seen in relationship to one another, the works that comprise Since Last We Met also evoke the ongoing process in which each new generation pays homage to the past while simultaneously seeking to dismantle and extend our conceptions of the art historical canon.