Opening Reception on Friday, January 26, from 6-9PM
McLennon Pen Co. Gallery is thrilled to announce a group show curated by David Futscher featuring Austin-based artists Jeffrey From, Lindsey Lascaux, and Peter McRury, and Kansas-based artist Slater Reid Sousley.
These artists are united in treating their artworks as objects: as an end and aim of their practice. While artworks always transcend their visual presentation—either through the subjective reactions they elicit or through deliberately embedded messages—the works featured in this group show can be approached with little to no mediation. Each artist sees art as a parallel visual language through which they pursue their investigations and answer questions with visual objects. The materiality of their works is intrinsic to this pursuit. The material out of which they make their artworks stands as a creative choice and a means to pursue their investigation, but also as a self-imposed constraint. It is informed by their question, and through each material’s specificity, it is a crucial element of their answer.
From and Sousley’s works will be presented together. Both artists are moved by a keen interest in materials and memory. From is presenting four drawings on vellum. His work is heavily influenced by serigraphy, with the use of transparent vellum inspired by the transfer process of creating silkscreen images. However, in From’s pieces, the vellum itself becomes the artwork. He moves away from the serial nature of screen printing to produce unique objects that are in between drawing and sculpture: his mark making not only stains but also embosses the delicate vellum. From’s works are a reflection on beauty and memory. His finished pieces retain the physical memory of the process. Their beauty is enhanced by the fragile and delicate nature of the material From uses. Much like our memories, the process and the final impression are inextricable from one another, and, like our memories, they are delicate and subject to the ravages of time and place. The works presented highlight From’s talent as a draftsman: there is no erasing, and, depending on how the light shines on the vellum, the blue ink From uses changes in tone and quality.
Similarly, Sousley is animated by the themes of family, memory, and their disintegration. Sousley is presenting four paintings. In his still lifes, Sousley pairs objects that don’t usually go together: psychologically charged objects that he inherited and others that he found. But for each painting he strives to maintain harmony despite the complexity and intricacy of the composition. Each is like a memory: a set of disparate parts that do not always necessarily cohere but which nevertheless form a whole. Sousley’s signature style lends a slightly abstract quality to his still lives that draws the viewer in without confusing them.
Lascaux and McRury focus on the present. They are united in probing the relationship between art, technology and the psychic architecture that we all carry with us and through which we interact with the world in which we are embedded. Lascaux is presenting three works: an acrylic painting on linen, and two lightboxes. Lascaux probes the unique ways in which human beings construct puzzling narratives to manage mental health. In order to question the present, Lascaux often draws from our nostalgia for the past and our hopes for imagined futures. She approaches each visual work as an end product whose material force carries more affectual weight in its literal and figurative place in our substantive world than didactics. Notwithstanding the seriousness of her themes, Lascaux always brings a touch of lightness and humor to her compositions that invariably charm the viewer. For instance, in “The Preamble CC,” Lascaux pokes fun at the disproportionate space that facial representations have come to take in our lives by overwhelming the viewer with non-descript 1980s brides and grooms dressed up in a style that is now considered kitsch. Her piece treats its subjects as a background in a farcical way.
McRury approaches each painting with a commitment to visual clarity, crafting focused pieces that captivate attention and invite viewers into a contemplative space where subjects are defined at the intersection of art and technology. McRury is presenting three airbrush paintings. His work centers on the detailed process of translating digital imagery onto canvas, using the precision of an airbrush. His paintings explore rich digital textures, depths, and imperfections of a diverse range of subjects—from familiar celebrities and pop culture icons to imaginative, nonsensical digital scenes. McRury’s technique is particularly suited to his interest: the airbrushing produces a sheen like that of digital surfaces.
From nostalgia to technology, from still life to abstract, from acrylic on linen to airbrush on canvas through to pen on vellum, this group show aims to inspire the viewer to wonder about what makes art beautiful in modernity.
About the Artists:
Jeffrey From (b. 1993, New York) is an artist and screen printer based in Austin, Texas. From graduated from Vassar College in 2015 with a degree in fine arts. After studying printmaking in New York, he spent the last five years working as a professional screen printer in Austin, Texas. Among others, From’s work was most recently featured in Austin based Icosa Gallery’s 2022 Concept Animals group show.
Lindsey Lascaux (b. 1991, Plano Tx) is an Austin-based artist, writer, and educator. Lascaux has a BA in cultural anthropology and sociology from the Lewis & Clark College in Portland. More recently, she graduated from SAIC in 2019 with an MA in visual and critical studies from SAIC. Lascaux’s work delves into the complexities of mental health, societal inequities, and the tools we use to manage our emotions. Her work has been featured in exhibitions with Loyal Gallery, NADA, Martha's, and Rift Contemporary, and her writing has appeared in various publications. She is also an active educator. Most recently, Lascaux led a course on 3D Modeling for Painters and Digital Painting at Austin Contemporary at Laguna Gloria.
Peter McRury (b. 1992, Toronto) is a Canadian artist living and working in Austin, Texas. McRury graduated from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, with a bachelor of science in cognitive systems in 2017. During the pandemic, McRury showed works in virtual exhibitions hosted by galleries in Chicago, New York, and London. Since then, his work has been featured in the online publications Booooooom and Overstandard, and he has painted commissioned series for Ggiata Delicatessen in West Hollywood and, most recently, for New Balance’s Fall/Winter 2024 Paris Fashion Week showroom.
Slater Reid Sousley (b. 1995, Kansas) currently splits his time working between his in-home studio in Overland Park, Kansas and his family’s farm in Central Missouri. Sousley studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, (SAIC), earning his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in May 2017. Continuing his arts education, Sousley received a Master of Arts in Art degree from Eastern Illinois University in May 2019, earning the Distinguished Graduate Award and the King-Mertz Award of Excellence. Most recently his work was included in a group show, titled Bloom, at Povos Gallery in Chicago, IL, in March and April of 2023.