Sacred Geometry

Sacred Geometry, a three-person show at Peninsula, includes square and rectangular Flashe (a vinyl-based opaque paint that dries into a matte finish) works on primed canvas by Robert Storr, Elisabeth Kley’s glazed earthenware works in the round—some of which function as fountains—and acrylic and pastel canvases by Tamara Gonzales. The exhibition, curated by Gina Mischianti, seeks to demonstrate varied contemporary approaches to geometrical abstraction. Additionally, each artist, per the press release, has purposed their choice geometrical form to address “transcendent concepts.”

With the exception of Kley’s miniature monochromatic ziggurats and amphoras, the “transcendent concepts” at hand primarily concern the necessary conditions for painting. In Kley’s case, however, both her ceramics (which resemble miniature temples and vases) and the snaking patterns that decorate them indicate the artist’s interest in ornamentation that facilitates the viewer’s phenomenological transcendence. In Mountains with Trees (2020), two miniature pyramids are striated in coarse black-and-white foliate designs. Arch (2020) plots filiform patterns along the eponymous charcoal-faced bow’s crescent haunch; the outer curves repeat a two-tone checkered lattice, the black-and-white template reminiscent of the early twentieth-century textiles designed by Josef Hoffmann of the Wiener Werkstätte. Kley includes an ovate motif on each of her sculptures, conforming it to the edges of the form, contracting and distending the almond-shaped figure into bisected quadrilaterals or smoothed flexions.