The space in Smack Mellon’s back gallery welcomes you as Kate Teale’s exhibition, Vanishing Points, fills the room, bringing the history of Dumbo into the space. Teale expands space itself through her studies of edge, architecture, and place. The work is a seamless connection of drawings adhered to the walls using Tyvek, making the illusion of space and the real blur into one. The gallery is transformed into a combination of several places, and as visitors turn, they adjust to each new location, finding details offering hints of the places Teale wants us to wander into.
Teale studied the places in and around historic Dumbo, pulling aspects of her observations into her drawings. The locations she chooses and their recreation are blurred as the hand of the artist recreates and records details, soft light, blurred edges, and notes her experience of the place. Letting us feel the grit of stone, the coolness of a shadow cast by a window’s ledge. The finesse in the work is evident, the intentionality and care in noting important details just enough to give us a sense of place, but not too much, is effective. It provides the viewer an opportunity to consider their own sense of place, from personal experiences, memories, or favorite locations in Dumbo, creating a sense of exploration.
Teale creates the illusion of space continuing through the portal placed closest to the floor. She uses a 2D medium to transform an entire space into an experience. Teale utilizes the entire room, and the concrete floor complements the work’s contrast and luminosity well. While the floor may anchor us to the present, Teale uses all four walls to offer entry into four separate places. Different times, temperatures, sounds, and surroundings. The edges of the various works are non-existent, and the vanishing points truly emerge.
Teale considers all details in her research. Corners, space in between, and ground are noted, along with edges, both hard and soft. All of these factors work to create a sense of place. Time seems liminal here, suspended in a convergence of multiple points of time and existence- you enter the space hovering over and under columns and structures. The piece on the right, with the windows, shows space in the distance, as if the exploration never ends. Pictured below, the crisp waters are drawn reflecting the bright light, as if illuminating the space itself, capturing a moment in time when Teale observed them. The sun must have been high in the sky, as they are less crisp. The drawing depicts motion as waters never get to enter, they stand on the precipice- suspended and stilled for us to observe instead. This piece mimicked the East River, which is in the same direction, a little way away. Teale uses these windows as gateways- depicting what is really outside the walls of the gallery, but in the artist’s own hand.
The piece depicting columns, which greets you as you walk through the larger gallery, is presented as part of Smack Mellon itself. The piece reminded me of the bridge that towered over me as I walked here, an iconic site. Locations meld into each other as viewers get to experience the works, focused on the foundations- light, shape, and values. Additionally, the drawings allow viewers to experience a place and to find their own associations, experiences, and emotions that it may evoke. Getting the opportunity to see the installation empty of people before the opening allowed quiet contemplation, letting my thoughts wander as much as my body did, bouncing from wall to wall and turning each corner to find something new all over again.
Teale uses these works to both reflect and dissipate aspects of the neighborhood using light and darkness. Through accumulation drawing methods, building texture and value, Teale’s windows become portals – access to both the indoors and outdoors. Each becomes a depiction of a new space just beyond our reach. Her installation stresses the consideration of how humans interact with a place, how they use a building, and how time and existence create change. Boundaries become important- showing where we may be able to go, and what spaces we are only allowed to observe, left to memory alone. Her drawings and research on light and locations build and dissolve her created spaces for us to further explore. Teale’s work fits snugly into the back gallery as you walkthrough the entirety of the gallery in order to reach her space. Having to pass through the rest of the gallery first allows the imagination to focus on the details the works offer, the nuances that Teale borrowed from this larger gallery itself.
Vanishing Points, Kate Teale, at Smack Mellon, 92 Plymouth Street, Brooklyn, NY. On view through March 28th, Wed – Sun, 12 – 6 pm.
About the Writer: Taylor Bielecki lives in Gowanus, where her studio is, and works at Pratt Institute, where she earned her MFA. She also studied at Penn State, where she earned a BA in English and a BFA in Fine Arts. She finished as a finalist in the Kennedy Center’s VSA National Emerging Young Artist program for 2017, where she earned an award of Excellence. She has shown prints internationally in a print exchange in Australia and exhibitions in Dubai, India, and the Glasgow School of Art. She has also shown paintings internationally in Gallery 24N, PhilaMOCA’s juried exhibitions in Philadelphia, Pa., Perry Lawson Fine Art in Nyack, NY, BWAC in Red Hook, and IW Gallery in Brooklyn. Taylor works periodically for Two Coats of Paint, TUSSLE Magazine, and has joined Art Spiel as a contributing writer. @taylor.bielecki