Small Cottage
Ezra Tessler
Curated by Caitlin MacBride
April 9 - May 8, 2022
Hudson House is delighted to present “Small Cottage,” Ezra Tessler’s first solo exhibition with the gallery.
Tessler’s work is the result of an extended process of trial and error. Often begun as watercolors, the pieces evolve into three-dimensional forms made from wire and pulp. Wrapped in handmade paper, they get chopped up, reworked, and repainted. Through cutting and collaging they gather associations from the artist’s life, family history, and the outside world. They are sometimes landscapes, still-lifes, bodies, domestic interiors.
Using modest materials, bright but often disquieting hues, and pattern after insistent pattern, Tessler’s paintings reflect on the relationship between our outward-facing selves and our messy interior lives. They use the language of abstraction but acknowledge that language itself can only be so useful. With this understanding, Tessler’s paintings suggest that close looking can offer insight, though partial, into a world that is always forming and falling apart.
The crafty pander, 2021, acrylic, abaca, wire, cast cotton, aqua resin, abaca, pulp paint, 20” x 28” x 4”
The crafty pander, 2021, acrylic, abaca, wire, cast cotton, aqua resin, abaca, pulp paint, 20” x 28” x 4”
Personal helicon, 2020, acrylic, gouache, wire, mesh, cast cotton, abaca, pulp paint, 6.5” x 6.5” x 4”,
Personal helicon, 2020, acrylic, gouache, wire, mesh, cast cotton, abaca, pulp paint, 6.5” x 6.5” x 4”,
Paradise on horseback, 2022, acrylic, wire, mesh, cast cotton, abaca, pulp paint, 8” x 9” x 5.5”
Paradise on horseback, 2022, acrylic, wire, mesh, cast cotton, abaca, pulp paint, 8” x 9” x 5.5”
Goodbye at Back River, 2020, acrylic, string, wire, cast cotton, abaca, pulp paint, 8” x 6.5” x 5”
Goodbye at Back River, 2020, acrylic, string, wire, cast cotton, abaca, pulp paint, 8” x 6.5” x 5”
Knickerbocker Lakes, 2020, acrylic, gouache, cast cotton, abaca, pulp paint
Knickerbocker Lakes, 2020, acrylic, gouache, cast cotton, abaca, pulp paint
Ezra Tessler lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Recent solo and two-person presentations include An angle to the place I live in at Tops Gallery (Memphis, TN), Recent Work with Good Weather at MECA (San Juan, PR), and The Nervous Hand with Fabienne Lasserre at 315 Gallery (Brooklyn, NY). His work has been included in recent groupshows at The Green Gallery West (Milwaukee, WI), The Landing (Los Angeles, CA), Jack Barrett Gallery (New York,NY), and Museo de los Pintores Oaxaqueños (Oaxaca, Mexico), among others. He is the recipient of a Jacob Javits Fellowship, a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, a Pforzheimer Foundation Fellowship, and has been an artist-in-residence at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, the Elizabeth Murray Foundation, Ox-Bow, and the Workspace Program at Dieu Donné.