Abby Cheney
Common Structures
November 14, 2024 – January 12, 2025
Artifacts and archaeology, ruins and recreations come together in the work of Abby Cheney in her solo exhibition Common Structures at 81 Leonard Gallery. Through an engagement with the history and tradition of craft and a solid foundation in contemporary sculpture, Cheney’s works illuminate shared human origins and universal practices.
Building upon the architecture of the human body and moving toward the human-made, the armature of the works are both skeletal and referential to built environments, including the domestic. A theme of interconnectedness emerges through the meeting of multiple craft methodologies with Cheney’s long-standing sculptural practice centering on paper pulp. In this body of work, Cheney incorporates weaving, beading, and hand-molding with pulp to layer surfaces upon the bones of her sculptures. The structures carry material and historical weight, as a body supports life and holds knowledge.
Cheney constructs ambiguity through negative space, subverting recognizable forms toward abstraction. Visually intricate interiors and beckoning emptiness create a sense of inner and outer worlds. True to human scale, the work compels one to envision themself within an imaginary landscape. Several of the sculptures stand at human height, while others evoke the intimacy of a hand-held object. Treasure bears similarities to both a jewelry box and a small animal. Its base, referencing furniture legs, especially highlights the inclination to anthropomorphize within art and design.
The exhibition also features new works on paper begun by the artist during a workshop at Dieu Donné, the New York-based non-profit cultural institution dedicated to hand papermaking. In addition to their inherent dialogue with her paper pulp sculptural work, the two-dimensional works also share a concern for structure. Their gridded compositions echo the warp and weft of textiles woven into her sculptures, as well as their latticework that lends itself to both stability and aesthetics. The grid is the starting point from which she departs organically, working with pulp paint and collage. Some of the works are more explicitly representative while others more fragmented or abstract, as if in various stages of archaeological excavation. In totality, the works in Common Structures embody the ephemerality of life but the endurance of culture.
Abby Cheney is an artist and educator from Baltimore, MD, currently living in Brooklyn, NY. Her interdisciplinary practice investigates how we use emotion and memory to assign value to objects and spaces regardless of material worth. She received her MFA in Painting and Drawing from Pratt Institute in 2018, and her BA in Studio Art and English from Kenyon College in 2014. Her work has been exhibited at a variety of spaces and institutions, including Flux Factory, 601artspace, Chashama Space to Present, Pierogi’s The Boiler and SPRING/BREAK Art Fair. She has held residencies at Ox-Bow School of Art, Trestle Art Space, Vermont Studio Center and Byrdcliffe Artists Colony. She works as a Teaching Artist with Studio in a School in elementary schools throughout NYC.
