A continuation of my obsession with converting basic objects of life and labor into still lives that do not sit still, Vessels presents a semi-simple set of containers. From within vases, studio work clothing, and a shipping crate, an abundance of irrationally reaching flower arrangements spring forth.
The handful of paintings and single sculpture that occupy Derek Eller Gallery’s intimate North Room are made using inkjet transfer and acrylic paint on canvas, which both conform to and defy their mediums’ trappings. Paintings become sculptures by revealing their innards and breaking their frames, and sculptures are elaborately constructed stretchers over which image-saturated canvas is stretched. The process-drenched works can be referred to as painting and sculpture, but are initiated by strategies derived from photography, printmaking, performance, surveillance and meta-fiction.
The exhibition uses the broad definition of the vessel as a container to hold, to embody, to preserve, to sanctify. Wall works depict water-filled vases preserving flowers for the fleeting days before demise, and paint-splattered studio clothing protects the maker from the made. The exhibition’s centerpiece is a sculpture which depicts a vessel intended for movement: a de-commissioned shipping crate that formerly housed a priceless figurative sculpture. Its front and flanks are bisected by cartoonishly large zippers which part to reveal a cage, or stretcher, that supports its painted skin. From the object’s tipped repose bursts a field of active flowers.
What starts simple—a photograph of discrete objects on a studio seamless backdrop—transforms through a haptic and hectic process resulting in objects that I feel reflect contemporary consciousness. In this state, the conditions of digital hegemony have eroded an entire value system of labor, linearity and veracity. I insist that my small crop of fleeting possessions live on as a self-replicating hive, with each work converging to form a fleet of drones with a collective endeavor: to recreate a parallel world that goes on and on, untethered from a discernible origination.
–David Kennedy Cutler
David Kennedy Cutler (b. 1979, Sandgate, VT; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) received his BFA from The Rhode Island School of Design in 2001. He recently completed a permanent public art commission at Lavender Country, Detroit MI (2026), was featured in an Artist Project in Artforum (January 2024) and received a NYFA grant for interdisciplinary work (July 2024). He has had solo exhibitions at Halsey McKay Gallery (East Hampton, NY), Essex Flowers (NYC), The Centre for Contemporary Art (Tallinn, Estonia) and Nice & Fit (Berlin, Germany). Cutler has performed in various spaces in New York including Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, Printed Matter, and Flag Art Foundation, and internationally at the Center for Contemporary Arts Estonia, among others. He has been included in group exhibitions internationally. His works are part of the the permanent collections of the Wellin Museum at Hamilton College, Chazen Museum, and The RISD Museum, and his artist’s books are included in the libraries of the Whitney Museum, The Yale Arts Library, and the Brooklyn Museum. This will be his sixth solo exhibition with the Gallery.