The works included in Emblemata explore the spaces between abstraction, ornamentation, and physical, tactile reality. The grid is a primary motif for both artists. Ikeler and Weathersby are in conversation with historical and contemporary artists who have grappled with the grid’s centrality in Western Modernism. Each artist makes sensitive, rigorous, slyly humorous paintings that maintain an equipoise between the functional materials of their supports (stretchers, panel, gesso, raw canvas, tiles, resin) and a shifting and deceptively complex matrix. Ikeler and Weathersby, through their utilization of processes such as inlay, insertion, embedding, parquetry, and mosaic, create highly original artworks that move fluidly between representation, abstraction, and pattern.
