The Goldmark Cultural Center’s Ruth Andres Gallery is excited to announce Home Stretch, a solo exhibition by Will Crutchfield on display from June 3rd to 16th. The show features a selection of sculptural canvas relief paintings from the artist's ongoing series, Groundwork, as well as an installation piece made using bricks. Using found materials gathered from significant places in the artist's life, the show touches on themes of emergence, tension, and remembrance. A reception will be held on Saturday, June 8th from 3-5 pm.
About the Exhibition
Home Stretch is a solo exhibition by Will Crutchfield that features recent pieces from his ongoing body of work, Groundwork. Using materials and tools traditional to painting and applying them to a sculptural framework through the use of found objects, the subject of each piece is veiled in canvas and painted allowing only the sanded relief to show what lies beneath, creating time capsules that can only be known by their impressions. In the larger works especially, this technique creates a physical pull between objects from which moments of tension, harmony, and resolve arise in the expansive and weathered compositions. The central piece in the show, Entasis, is comprised of a short column of bricks stacked atop a canvas-wrapped footing. This piece acts as a capstone to the work displayed, depicting a foundation that has been worn away and a structure that has been carefully built atop it.
About the Artist
Will Crutchfield is a mixed media artist from Rockwall, TX. Will completed his BFA in painting at the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2023 and has been creating and sharing his work for over a decade. During his time in living in Savannah, GA, Will produced and curated numerous local exhibitions and art events, capping off his time there with his Thesis show, Thick As Thieves at The Nest Gallery; a duo exhibition between himself and photographer Liam Gildea which debuted in May of 2023.
Will’s work focuses primarily on personal history and perception. Employing the use of found objects and media alongside traditional materials used in painting, His works display the potential that lies within the Distillation, alteration and removal of history. By stripping away the unnecessary, the artist allows himself and his viewers to admire the complexity and richness that merely one painted gesture, color, or idea can provide.
This process of reduction is echoed by the mixed media elements frequently featured in the artist’s works. By allowing found media to physically and conceptually shape his paintings, Will reveals the power of association and subjectivity. Rather than attempting to discover and define their history, Will allows these components to exist as they are, as objects that have organically been distilled by the passing of time. Once again, through a process of withholding visual information, the artist reminds viewers of how much curiosity, intrigue, and visual mythmaking just one found element can inspire; encouraging himself and viewers to contemplate a past that can never be fully known.