Colin Keefe and Fabio Fernandez/Tom Lauerman

Urban Environments, September 2013

For the better part of the last ten years, Colin Keefe, Fabio Fernández, and Tom Laureman have all developed independent artistic practices rooted in architecture and abstraction. Their work challenges our relationships with the built-environment, and how we encounter the details within it. Adopting a critical yet playful attitude, they divert our perceptions of how we move through space, of objects in space, and of preconceived notions that frame and direct our actions and interactions. Keefe states that his work “explores methods for breeding urban environments… without an urban planner as protagonist.”  Similarly, Lauerman states his collaboration with Fernández stems from “spaces, forms, details, and potentialities of constructed space.”

All three artists practice an experimental approach in which their works are continually evolving. A model may present itself as a stand-alone piece or be reborn in the form of a sculpture or drawing. In this sense, the exhibition here has been conceived not as an end in itself, but rather as a stage that would allow these artists to return to certain works and introduce new ideas. This called for maintaining the experimental aspect of the process rather than placing the works in a vacuum. The gallery as structure or system is involved in creating new and unexpected reactions within the artists’ set of concerns.