SYDNEY COHEN + W. SCOTT TRIMBLE

August 25 – September 30, 2012

Gallery | Syndey Cohen + W. Scott Trimble

Project | Operation: Miss you Pops | W. Scott Trimble

Reception Saturday, August 25, 2012 6-8pm

Swarm Gallery is please to present Sydney Cohen and W. Scott Trimble in their two-person exhibition on view from August 25 – September 30, 2012. On view in the Project Space is Operation: Miss you Pops, an installation W. Scott Trimble.

Moving across space, between relationships, and throughout consciousness, Sydney Cohen’s paintings are as orienting as they are disorienting. Beginning with blocks of color formed by individual chromatic alliances, pathways and rooms lay out on flat, unstable grounds. Abstract structures continually reorder themselves, mimicking fluid processes of migration and memory. Cohen is interested in the mental flexibility that allows a shape to be simultaneously be understood as a thought, a wall, and an imperfect orange rectangle. As these shapes therefore oscillate between formal elements and conceptual strategies, how one perceives shape and color is inextricably linked to how one navigates through space and time. While this exhibition includes works from a number of related bodies, they may be understood as different layers of the same process, from its most basic construction to its most complex articulation.

W. Scott Trimble’s wooden sculptural installations are an observance on the myriad of protective solutions one creates in order to navigate through space. Concerning himself with the mental and physical protective functionalities of architecture — or protecture, as he refers to it — Trimble’s works presented in the main gallery reference temples, fortresses and minarets. These varied structures, which are modular in form and varied in structure, allude to sanctuaries and offer one the space to experience comfort within the unpredictable terrain of daily life. Whereas the dynamic spaces represented in Cohen’s paintings are in a constant state of multilayered fluctuation, Trimble’s sculptures offer an anchor from which one may center oneself in this ever-changing movement; if Cohen’s paintings enact the foundational process of navigating through time and space, then Trimble’s sculptures provide the architectural armor one needs to survive, if not thrive, while engaged in such action.

In the Project Space Trimble presents a tribute to his father who passed away in 2010. Operation: Miss you Pops is an attempt at the impossible journey to or visitation from the artist’s father. A vintage spacecraft facilitates this journey, which has the ultimate goal of answering the artist’s unanswered questions and replacing his feeling of longing with that of solace. However unlikely such an interaction may be, the efforts to reach it are of the utmost sincerity and provide a therapeutic, cathartic experience.

Artist Biographies: Sydney Cohen received her BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts, and her MA and MFA in Painting from the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. She has been teaching at the California College of the Arts in Oakland since 2002. Her work has been exhibited in the Bay Area as well as in Iowa and Chicago. She currently lives and works in Berkeley, CA.

W. Scott Trimble received his BFA in Spatial Arts from San Jose State University and his MFA in Sculpture from the University of Washington, Seattle. Most recently, Scott was awarded a GAP Grant in Visual Arts in 2010 from the Artist Trust in Seattle, WA and and Individual Projects Grant in 2008 from 4-Culture. He has exhibited work in Washington, Oregon and California. Trimble currently lives and works in Seattle, WA.