Online

Torkwase Dyson

In Focus

Torkwase Dyson: In Focus, an online exhibition of six works on paper created by Torkwase Dyson in 2021, is presented in concert with the artist’s solo exhibition and collaborative Pace Live performance Liquid A Place at the gallery’s new 5 Hanover Square space in London. Complementing the in-person presentation, which features sculptures and a site-specific sound piece, this exhibition hones in on a less widely known aspect of Dyson’s wide-ranging practice. On view from October 8 to November 6, these dynamic abstractions rendered in gouache, graphite, pen, and liquid charcoal bring the artist’s experiments with geometry and form to a more intimate scale.

Liquid a Place #01 by Torkwase Dyson — Torkwase Dyson, *Liquid a Place #01*, 2021, gouache, graphite, pen, and liquid charcoal on paper, 8-1/4" × 11-3/4" (21 cm × 29.8 cm)

Dyson takes a conceptual approach to her drawing practice, and the works in Torkwase Dyson: In Focus explore balance, depth, and perception. Deeply engaged with the formal qualities of her paintings and sculptures, these drawings feature a combination of robust, textured shapes and precise lines and angles. Each work possesses its own mysterious mathematics, and two animations included in this presentation shed light on the ways the artist forges her compositions on paper using a range of materials.

Each drawing is a form of analysis, looking at the efficiencies in our current built and natural environments and the relationships people of color have to them.

Torkwase Dyson

Torkwase Dyson, Extraction, 2020, Animation

Liquid a Place #04 by Torkwase Dyson — Torkwase Dyson, *Liquid a Place #04*, 2021, gouache, graphite, pen, and liquid charcoal on paper, 8-1/4" × 11-3/4" (21 cm × 29.8 cm)

“My efforts are focused on developing a distilled abstract drawing practice in the language of architectural and infrastructural representation that lends itself to participation in spatial development and more livable geographies,” Dyson wrote in her essay Black Interiority: Notes on Architecture, Infrastructure, Environmental Justice, and Abstract Drawing from 2017. “In drawing, I develop compositions, diagrams, marks, surfaces, and models toward these ends, always with the movement of the human body in mind. Each drawing is a form of analysis, looking at the efficiencies in our current built and natural environments and the relationships people of color have to them.”

Liquid a Place #05 by Torkwase Dyson — Torkwase Dyson, *Liquid a Place #05*, 2021, gouache, graphite, pen, and liquid charcoal on paper, 8-1/4" × 11-3/4" (21 cm × 29.8 cm)

Torkwase Dyson, State Change, 2020, Animation

While she primarily considers herself a painter, Dyson works across multiple other mediums, including installation and sculpture. The artist often examines the connections between infrastructural systems, histories of colonialism, and climate change in her practice. In addition to her solo exhibition and performance series at Pace’s London gallery, the artist is part of the multidisciplinary, multi-year ecological project Back to Earth at the city’s Serpentine Gallery. She is also the subject of an ongoing solo exhibition at the Hall Art Foundation, Schloss Derneburg, Germany.

Past

Pace Live — Torkwase Dyson

Liquid A Place

Oct 8 – Nov 6, 2021

London

About the Artist

Torkwase Dyson describes herself as a painter working across multiple mediums to explore the continuity between ecology, infrastructure, and architecture. Examining environmental racism as well as the history and future of black spatial liberation strategies, Dyson’s abstract works grapple with the ways in which space is perceived and negotiated, particularly by black and brown bodies. In 2019, Dyson’s solo exhibition I Can Drink the Distance was on view at The Cooper Union, New York, and her work was also presented at the Sharjah Biennial.

Learn More

Past, Torkwase Dyson, In Focus, Oct 8, 2021