Sarah Krepp:….VROOM!

Monday, Nov 15, 2021 – Jan 15, 2022

601 6th St., Racine, WI 53403

….VROOM!

November 13- January 15, 2022  (open Saturdays 12:00-5:00 or by appointment)

OS Projects is honored to present Chicago artist Sarah Krepp in a solo exhibition featuring her singular mixed media paintings and sculptures.

Sarah Krepp, a preeminent visual artist, educator and curator, has exploded the boundaries of painting during her decades-long experimentation with materials and processes.  She is an astute observer of conditions on the ground, deftly weaving incisive social and environmental commentary into her ambitious works.

Combining scraps of blown-out tires, tar, lace and handwritten text fragments transcribed from radio news programs, Krepp’s works set up an interplay between the brute force of the road and fragile domesticity. The abundantly massed surfaces, with their explosions and extrusions of black conglomerates, serve as metaphors for the threat of engulfment—in particular, ecological disaster.  Blown-out tires, littered along roadsides and stacked into piles at shredding facilities, epitomize an American landscape built upon oil, commerce and the enduring fantasy of the open road.  By incorporating the detritus of this landscape, Krepp’s works foreground the indulgences of contemporary society and the tendency to downplay or dismiss consequences.

On a formal level, Krepp’s layered yet lyrical assemblages of everyday materials play with and puncture the borders between painting, sculpture, drawing and choreography.  Her visually complex works create an energetic impact that prioritizes poetic dynamics before the content is understood.  Inhabiting an ambiguous space with both curiosity and confidence, Krepp’s works speak to our struggle to understand the fractured world while reaffirming the vigor and exuberance of our lived experiences.

About the Artist

Sarah Krepp has shown her interdisciplinary art in museums and galleries nationally and internationally.  Her works are in museum, corporate and private collections throughout North America including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Illinois State Museum, Brauer Museum of Art, the corporate headquarters for GE and McDonald’s, and BMO Harris Bank, among others.

Krepp has been awarded many research grants and residencies—most recently, a residency at Cill Rialaig Arts Centre in County Kerry, Ireland.  She has also received travel grants to conduct research in Scotland, England, Ireland and Germany.

 

Image courtesy of the artist.