Ella Gonzales & Derek Sullivan: 1, 3, 7

Derek Sullivan and Ella Gonzales both previously occupied the gallery for three years, twenty years apart, and shared a studio building, also, years apart. These overlaps form a loose framework for the exhibition, where familiarity with the site is built-up contextually and aesthetically through distance rather than simultaneity.

Developed through ongoing correspondence, the exhibition considers vessels, containers, and the spaces we move through. Sullivan’s drawings and Gonzales’ paintings approach the gallery as both structure and subject, each work scaled and situated. Sullivan’s drawings extend his “press sheet” works - speculative book forms that hold images of vessels drawn from his home - while Gonzales’ paintings take the proportions of the gallery as a guiding structure, building layered compositions from remembered interiors.

Across both practices, the gallery becomes a point of orientation. Works are scaled, placed, and shaped in direct relation to its architecture, acting as anchors within the space while remaining open to shifts in perception, and relation.

Moving between diagram and intuition, function and image, the works hold forms in states of transition - where meaning is not fixed, but continually shaped by memory, use, and time.

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Host or Publisher Susan Hobbs Gallery