Silas Marder Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of sculpture by British-born, California-based artist Anya Gallaccio, opening June 27, and on view through July 26, 2015. Over the past twenty years, Anya Gallaccio has carved out a rich and varied practice that ranges from ephemeral site-specific installations to “natural readymades.” Throughout, the artist has been exploring the relationship between humans and the environment, often working with organic materials like fruit, flowers, chocolate, and dirt to capture processes of transformation, both natural and industrial.

Whether she is nurturing seeds sown in the fallow spaces where sculptures once sat (keep off the grass, 1997), or coating a square of the gallery floor with layers of beet sugar (now the day is over, 2007), Gallaccio is deeply invested in materiality. Often, the material becomes a means of investigating the narratives of place, each locally sourced element inviting connections to global networks of history, economy, and politics.

The exhibition will include four 500lb open cubes constructed out of varying arrangements of limestone and sandstone, as well as If recollecting were forgetting (2006-2013), a hand knotted gold lame fishing net. Placed within the gallery, as well as in the adjacent gardens, the stone forms frame the landscape and each other, expanding and contracting in concert with their surroundings. While the seemingly perfect geometry of these forms implies the mechanized hand of industry, each ancient slice of rough-hewn stone, unique in color and pattern, contains a reverent geological history all its own.

The gallery is open Thursday – Monday, 11am – 5pm and by appointment.

Born in Paisley, Scotland in 1963, Gallaccio attended Goldsmiths College at the University of London, where she and her peers became known as Young British Artists. She has exhibited extensively with major solo exhibitions at the Tate Modern, London (2003); Sculpture Center, New York (2006); Camden Art Centre, London (2008); and Eastshire Museum, Scotland (2010). In 2003, Gallaccio was shortlisted for the prestigious Turner Prize. She has held residencies at the Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, CA; the Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA; and Foundation for Contemporary Art, San Antonio, TX. Her work can be found in the public collections of the Art Council, London; The British Council Collection, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Seattle Art Museum; Tate Britain, London; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. She is currently a professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego.

*All Images Courtesy of Silas Marder Gallery, Photo Credit: Jenny Gorman.