Pink Noise Projects is proud to introduce the exhibition A Capitalist Plaid, a solo exhibition of paintings + poetic text pairs by Dawn Kramlich, which will run through the month of May 2024.
Public Opening Reception: Friday, May 3rd, 5-9pm – the artist will be present this day only
Open Hours: Saturdays + Sundays 2-6pm, or by appointment
Referencing the historical use of the grid in US American art, as well as the fact that the grid is a system, Kramlich uses the grid (implied via overlaid text, or as actual measured linework) as a stand-in for the stifling heteronormative, white-supremacist, patriarchal system which marginalizes many groups of humans.
Eva Hesse once asserted that Minimalism was a metaphor for the confinement of society.
This is Kramlich’s springboard.
Most works in this exhibition are palimpsests of the word “value.” Interpreting “value” indicates a complex semiosis; the word refers to variations of such polarized attributes as hues vs. achromatics, conjures incredibly disparate imagery serving as signifiers, and can be humanistic, economic, or materialistic in its usage. When coupled with a grid, it suggests a system. Language is a political system.
While scrutinizing and auditing what dictates the artist’s own relationship(s) to the word ‘value’ as an American, queer, pansexual, white, woman artist, this body of work became an examination of the larger consequences of late-stage capitalism within a society which commonly suggests that “value” is only reserved for the quantifiable. In the words of Rebecca Solnit:
“My friend Chip Ward speaks of “the tyranny of the quantifiable,” of the way what can be measured almost always takes precedence over what cannot: private profit over public good; speed/efficiency over enjoyment and quality; the utilitarian over the mysteries and meanings that are of greater use to our survival and to more than our survival, to lives that have some purpose and value that survive beyond us to make a civilization worth having.”
Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Dawn Kramlich is a queer artist and writer who lives and works in Chicago, IL. Her artwork has always been text-based, and her artistic practice involves research on semiotics, poetry (especially ekphrasis), Post-Structuralism, Intersectional Feminism, and the history of text-based American art. Kramlich earned her BA degree magna cum laude from Muhlenberg College, producing the first cross-major creative honors thesis (paintings + poems) in the history of Muhlenberg’s English and Art departments. She then moved to Philly and received her MFA summa cum laude in Studio Art from Moore College of Art & Design. Kramlich regularly lectures at institutions, such as PAFA, and has shown her work widely across the US, including the Woodmere Museum, and internationally in Ireland. Most notably, her work was included in a solo exhibition titled Mark My Words at the Barbara Crawford Gallery in 2023, Maus Contemporary’s Capitolism: The Normalization of Political Violence in the United States exhibition in 2021, Rowan University Gallery’s exhibition entitled Dialogic alongside John Giorno, Jaume Plensa, Jenny Holzer, and Glenn Ligon in 2013, and in the 4-person installation-based exhibition entitled PaperScapes at the Philadelphia Art Alliance in 2017. Kramlich was commissioned in 2022 by the PHL International Airport to create a painting which was scanned and printed at mural scale (7.5ft x 22ft) for the connector hallway just before Terminal F. Her artwork has been published in “I Like Your Work” podcast’s catalog, “Muhlenberg Magazine,” “CODAmagazine,” “THE magazine,” and the online version of “Creative Quarterly.” Kramlich taught for a decade as an adjunct at Muhlenberg College, Tyler School of Art, and Penn State University’s Abington College until she moved from Philly to Chicago in 2023 for her current position as the tenure-track Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing at Elmhurst University.
Contact: dawnkramlich@gmail.com
Instagram: @dawnkramlich
Image Caption: Capitalist Plaid #9: Distraction System – encaustic and oil stick on canvas, 16″ x 16″, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist.
Pink Noise Projects 