Sarah Ortmeyer, DAVID (2022), via Galerie Eva Presenhuber

Combining together a series of works and a range of different approaches and series from her practice, artist Sarah Ortmeyer presents a selection of pieces at Galerie Eva Presenhuber this month, united under the title SPORTS CLUB NEW YORK. 

Ortmeyer’s practice engages with the world of risk, recurrently touching the theme of chess in conversation with notions of love. Spanning from sculpture to painting to publishing, and offering wild compositions that convey a romanticism of emotions, underlined with an unusual understanding of the human condition., here work takes on dialogues between modern language and that of the art historical.

Sarah Ortmeyer, LE LOVE (GABRIEL OCASIO-CORTEZ & TELFAR CLEMENS (2022), via Galerie Eva Presenhuber

The artist’s extensive oeuvre is emblematic of both a bold temperament and a subtle approach. Here, that takes on express shape through a range of minimalist collages and images of David Beckham, assembled here alongside large-scale chess boards (part of her GRANDMASTER series), immense eggs (from MONSTER), and a range of images of various celebrities and public figures, all subtly accented with a dust of pink that gives the black and white images a sense of human aura. These are works meant to touch on the human, touched with an empathetic hand that seems to hint at a desire for the image to become real, or perhaps only for the image to exist in a new sphere. Other works like her large, lumpen silver pieces seem to offer a counterpoint, as if the artist poses shapes and sketches as a way to deter the viewer from assuming they are only to focus on famous faces.

Sarah Ortmeyer, GRANDMASTER (Rose) (2018), via Galerie Eva Presenhuber

Sarah Ortmeyer, DIABOLUS (PROTECTOR) (2022), via Galerie Eva Presenhuber

Taken together, the works of SPORTS CLUB NEW YORK are posed as a step towards innocence and a story of bigger, darker stories. Celebrity and innocence are recurring themes, as are fragility and power, all underscored by the chess motif that seems to drive directly at the notion of their opposition and interaction. Ortmeyer’s various icons are always within site of the chess board, as if to pose icons of admiration, imagination and success against the machinations that these states require to achieve.

The show closes July 29th.

– D. Creahan

Read more:
Eva Presenhuber [Exhibition Site]

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