Howard Yezerski Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Meaningful Dust, an exhibition of new work by Greg Mencoff. This is Mencoff’s first exhibition at the gallery. The seven wall-mounted sculptures in the exhibition continue Mencoff’s engagement with minimalism. New to his process is the inclusion of metal elements such as aluminum and steel plate or square tubular steel. These components act as an optical and tactile balance to the monochromatic painted surfaces. His past references to the possible usefulness of objects have given way to more reductive and metaphorical content within architecturally based formats.

Of the seven works in the exhibition, five are singular wall sculptures while two are multiples of repeating shapes and material. The origin of the multiples is a direct result of Mencoff’s practice and study of electronic music, notably the repetition and layering of non-Western sound patterns. End Game (Wailing Wall) is a large wall installation rooted in the conceptual interpretation of the patterning, symbolism, and interactive physical function of The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. The black and white composition is borrowed from traditional Taoist iconography, reconfigured in an orthogonal format. The overall repetitive nature of the 100

forms, centrally broken by the color palette, is a nod to staggered auditory syncopation, attributable to a sound wave modulating as a harmonic symmetrical monotony. Filling Time is a multiple of seven forms in a narrow, vertical format. Tubular steel, with ground black pocked surfaces, is filled with translucent yellow resin resting on identically shaped wood painted a thin neutral enamel. It is a loose reference to a progression of echo and silence. Linewaves and White Noise marks a departure from Mencoff’s smooth, alkyd painted surfaces. The neutral whites of both works are dotted with marks of small black granularity and fractured, disconnected lines. This recent approach to the paint finish is influenced by his interest in the sonic texture of granular sound synthesis.

Mencoff’s use of steel plate as components of textural balance with the smoothly painted surfaces is evident in the two longer horizontal pieces of the exhibition. Core is a yin-yang of pastel monochrome paint and etched steel, pushing a subtle optical shift of implied weight and depth. First Second uses opposing steel vertical plates more as a moment of pause within the painted field, providing a negative space that breaks an otherwise flat optical surface of opposing identical shapes.

The smallest sculptures of Meaningful Dust incorporates a single etched aluminum plate as a primary element. Inner Morandi is an optical juxtaposition of three-dimensional flatness and space. The reading of depth shifts by an alternating perception of volume of a single form. This approach was influenced by Mencoff’s interest in the spatial illusions of illustrated miniature Persian manuscripts. Life of a Metronome has varying orientations of lozenger shapes cut through a trapezoid aluminum plate. The shapes originate from a single point, one along each edge of the perimeter. It is Mencoff’s homage to an endless cycle of repetition, never wavering but only punctuated with slight variances.

This exhibition of Mencoff’s work shows a departure from his organic based forms to sculptures that confronts a more metaphorical context within an unambiguous environment of an architectural format. The approach to materials and painted surface is less about a clever delivery of craftsmanship that has defined his past work, but more about the remains that the objects suggest.