Howard’s is proud to present a solo exhibition by Athens based artist Katya Tepper. It will open Sunday September 15, from 4-6 pm, and run through October 19th. The show will consist of a large installation as well as smaller works.
Tepper’s newest work comes from experimenting with the intersections of sculpture, painting, drawing, craft, and performance. For this show Tepper embraces a deconstructed and disorderly approach on the floor, departing from the contained frontality of recent wall constructions.
A hulking accumulation of interwoven objects moves fluidly with a relentless visual pace. Studio fragments, detritus, textile scraps, plastic debris, vegetation, bags of composted manure- are entangled with an endless potential for further play. The work embraces the energy of spontaneity and accident, while indulging in intricate repetition and craft processes. For all of its addition, the work is equally about subtraction- removing, pealing, tearing, and cutting are fundamental.
Tepper aestheticizes the fecundity of waste, accumulation, excess, and contamination. There are shifting anatomical associations- like silicon casts of toilet plungers that double as breasts. We are reminded of bodily systems and fluids, as well as systems of agricultural production, urban sprawl, economies. There is no differentiation between the internal and external in this dizzying web. Their work evokes the absurdist Arte Povera gestures of Piero Manzoni, the meandering networks of Sarah Sze, and the sculptural painting of Jessica Stockholder.
Progress Shot, Howard’s, September 2019
Katya Tepper (b. 1987, South Florida) lives and works in Athens, GA. Tepper earned a BFA from the Cooper Union in 2010 and is currently working towards and MFA from Bard. In 2017, they received a Wynn Newhouse Award and MacDowell Fellowship. Tepper has recently had solo exhibitions at White Columns, NY, the Atlanta Contemporary, Lamar Dodd School of Art (Bridge Gallery), and Species, Atl. Recent group shows include Crip Time, Sick Time, Sleepy Time: Against Capitalism’s Temporal Bullying, at Red Bull Arts, Detroit; and By Our Own Hands, at Camayuhs, Atlanta.
Stair access only, assistance available.
Touch tours for the visually impaired are available.