Virginia Overton, Untitled (2015 ), all images courtesy White Cube
On view in London at White Cube in Mason’s Yard is an exhibition of new large-scale minimalist sculptures by American artist Virginia Overton. The exhibition is Overton’s first in the UK.
Overton’s works are unique in their approach at transformation within a space, using materials that were originally intended for another purpose, recycled and often of very little commodity value. The artist is from Lebanon, Tennessee, and and, in her own words, often employs a sense of thrift and economical savvy to assembling her works, a move which frequently leads to the incorporation of highly biographic elements and materials in her pieces.  Overton is currently based in Brooklyn, NY, where she works with installation, sculpture, and photography.
Virginia Overton, Untitled (2015 )
For this exhibition, Overton created site-responsive works using locally sourced and recycled materials, ranging from wood and metal to fluorescent lighting, mirrored acrylic, lumber, rope and cement. She also used sandbags, chairs, ladders and pipes to obstruct the space created by the building materials.  In some large-scale works, the artist incorporates highly flexible whitewood to create arching, curved installations that redefine space by their own interaction with the forces of pressure and gravity.  The whitewood in the installation located on the ground floor gallery is held in place by its own tension rather than extra support beams, creating a look of simple elegance as the wood bends at the ceiling. The surrounding architecture is contrastingly linear, so that the inner bow represents a kind of escape from that confining grid.
Virginia Overton, Untitled (2015 )
In another work, suspended from the ceiling are three open-ended rectangular boxes which were made with the whitewood left over from the previous work. The work can be interpreted as an oversized mobile, as the boxes do interact with each other in a symbiotic balance.  Another sculpture, made from the same whitewood, is woven and stacked together into a pattern so that the materials seem to unfold, extending from the corner and out into the gallery. The way the wood is stacked makes the solid building material appear elastic and even malleable, subject to the pull of unseen forces.
Virginia Overton, Untitled (2015 )
An interesting dichotomy of use is bound up in Overton’s works here, rendering pieces and their remainders with equal aesthetic value.  Repositioning the final work as a relation to its initial materials, rather than a finalized, rigid form, Overton’s particular brand of aesthetic sustainability makes for an intriguing visit to the space.
The current exhibition at White Cube Mason’s Yard will continue through March 14th.
Virginia Overton, Untitled (2015)
— E. Baker
Related Links:
Exhibition Page [White Cube]
