Paul Kotula Projects is pleased to present Slight Return, a solo exhibition of recent work by Jim Shrosbree (Fairfield, IA). The exhibition includes an extended series of wall-hung and freestanding sculpture and a vast portfolio of works on paper.
Shrosbree's new work 'returns' to work he created in the 1990s when clay and volume where central to defining an intimate collision between nature and Modernism. What Shrobree brings to the work in Slight Return is "an expanded vocabulary that has developed partly through working with a variety of materials over the past 15 years." Central to this new series are hollow ceramic forms that could be read as balloons, sausage, lingam or a range of structures found in the natural landscape. Presented singularly, in pairs or stacks, they seemingly appear to be deflated or activated or in that place 'in-between'. As the artist states, 'nothing is doing.'
Shrosbree's work is simultaneously humorous and sublime. He uses color, materiality and context to such personal effect that the viewer is left intimately exploring every minutia of its reality. His wall-hung sculpture most often has parts drawn and/or painted directly onto the wall and are lit so that shadows are integral to each sculpture's composition and experience.
A portion of the work in this exhibition was completed during a residency at Yaddo Art Colony, Saratoga Springs, NY in 2015. This was Jim Shrosbree's second residency at Yaddo; he was also awarded one in 2012. Among his other awards are a 1993 National Endowment for the Arts/Arts Midwest, Visual Artist Fellowship and a sculpture commission from the University of Iowa, Museum of Art for Library Commons in 2014.
Shrosbree's work has been exhibited throughout the United States and is such prestigious public collections as the Detroit Institute of Arts; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO; Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC and Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, East Lansing, MI and many private collections including that of Irving Blum. He is Professor of Art at Maharishi University, Fairfield, IA.