5 years in the past, I reviewed Lisa Corinne Davis’s exhibition All Shook Up on the now-closed Pamela Salisbury Gallery in Hudson, New York. Davis’s geometric abstractions zeroed in on the tangle of programs and networks shaping our lives. On the time, I felt that the totally different structural preparations, and their interrelationships, didn’t snap along with sufficient power. No matter qualms I had about Davis’s work have been laid to relaxation along with her present exhibition, Syllogism, at Miles McEnery Gallery.
What was obvious within the earlier work, and is much extra convincing and thrilling now, is that Davis has stretched the chances of geometric abstraction right into a territory outlined by digital programs, algorithms, movement charts, and diagrams — a visible realm that alludes to the measurement and prediction of our habits. She has achieved this by growing a vocabulary made up of distinct summary languages, every one composed of comparable colours and based mostly on repeating models, which embody open, unstable grids; varied geometric shapes; strains and bands; and puzzle-like shapes. Working nearly completely in oil on canvas, Davis layers one open system over one other, ensuring nobody dominates, as they disrupt and infiltrate one another. The determine/floor relationship is nuanced and contentious, as a number of programs vie for our consideration.
Lisa Corinne Davis, “Dogmatic Deceit” (2025), oil on canvas
How are we to learn these work, and the various pleasures they convey? That’s what retains me taking a look at them: They welcome myriad narratives with out ever settling right into a single storyline. Will we learn them biographically? Are they related to maps? Do they touch upon our collective dependency on computer systems? Are they political statements in regards to the comforts of figuring out with an ideology? Does the title of 1 portray, “Dogmatic Deceit,” encourage many associations directly? No matter your response, it’s amply clear to me that Davis has made geometric abstraction germane to our swiftly altering, downward spiraling instances, and that’s no small accomplishment.
Whereas these are gradual, inviting work, they’re teeming with exercise on each degree. Have a look at all of the totally different methods that Davis incorporates into “Convulsive Calculation” (all works 2025). Working with rectangles and wavy strains which may recall Sol LeWitt’s use of them starting within the mid-’90s, Davis composes a fancy, layered area in contrast to anything I’ve seen in present abstraction. With some inexplicable exceptions, the rectangles could be divided into three colour teams — white, cerulean blue, and darkish greenish blue — set towards a green-yellow floor that modifications nearly imperceptibly.
The darkish rectangles, parallel to the portray’s edges, perform as a visible anchor amid the hubbub of wavy strains and smaller cerulean and white rectangles that overlay them at totally different angles. Are the densely packed cerulean rectangles dashing up or sliding down from the decrease right-hand nook? Is the large, diagonal swath of white ones dashing to fulfill them or shifting away? How do the bigger cerulean shapes, forming a triangle within the higher left-hand nook and cordoning off the white ones, match into the general composition?
Lisa Corinne Davis, “Notional Adage” (2025), oil on canvas
We will see the motion, however we have no idea what it means. That is what I discover so compelling about Davis’ work: She reveals us a world we all know exists however seldom see up shut, a fantastic, multicolored system populated by geometric shapes, strains, and grids — all of that are acquainted and don’t normally really feel threatening. In “Convulsive Calculation,” nonetheless, every little thing is verging on incoherence and knowledge overload; we’re on the cusp of chaos.
I’m reminded of the opening strains of William Wordsworth’s poem “The World Is Too Much With Us”:
The world is an excessive amount of with us; late and shortly,Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—Little we see in Nature that’s ours;We’ve given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
Gradual to disclose themselves and meticulously made, Davis’s paradoxical work converse to our age of simultaneous data overload and disparity, the place the hole between language and which means, and wealthy and poor, will increase by the hour.
Lisa Corinne Davis, “Fleeting Form” (2025), oil on canvas
Set up view of Lisa Corinne Davis: Syllogism at Miles McEnery Gallery
Lisa Corinne Davis, “Temporal Terrain” (2025), oil on canvas
Lisa Corinne Davis: Syllogism continues at Miles McEnery Gallery (525 West twenty second Road, Chelsea, Manhattan) although October 25. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
