黑料不打烊

Ratio 3 is pleased to present Hid It Well in a Walnut Shell, a solo exhibition of new and recent artworks by Daisy May Sheff. For her first solo exhibition with Ratio 3, Sheff presents an array of paintings that showcases the breadth and rapid evolution of her imaginative approach to object- and image-making. Varying in scale, media, and painting style, the pictures comprising the exhibition achieve a distinctive balance of abstraction, figuration, and intuitive composition, each offering a glimpse into Sheff鈥檚 uniquely evocative depictions of dreamlike narratives.

Sheff鈥檚 artworks function primarily as paintings, executed in oil, acrylic, and pastel on surfaces varying from stretched canvas to assemblages of found wooden panels. The compositions often take on sculptural characteristics, with reclaimed materials embedded within their traditionally painted surfaces. Throughout the exhibition鈥攁nd frequently within a single composition鈥� Sheff combines painting styles freely, evoking multiple art-historical techniques at once. Delicate impressionistic brushstrokes transform into dense, impasto marks, and vibrant neon colorfields overlap with flattened shapes of matte color, producing cubistic distortions of space and perspective. 

At first glance, Sheff鈥檚 compositions present an ensemble of invented characters that seem to merge with the pictorial space they inhabit, becoming intermittently transparent or dissolving into gestural abstraction. With sustained viewing, regions of figuration and abstraction become, almost paradoxically, both more distinct and fluid. Sheff often renders her human figures as if posed for a formal portrait, outfitted in ornate, leg-of-mutton-sleeved dresses or with surreal bird-shaped mustaches, yet just as often, the paintings portray quotidian domestic rituals like bathing and sleeping, with the occasional character enacting other inscrutable, arcane activities.