Bernard Klevickas and Phil McGaughy
Fluid Geometries, May 2015
Grizzly Grizzly is excited to announce 'Fluid Geometries,' a two-person exhibition of sculpture from Bernard Klevickas and Phil McGaughy for May 2015. Both artists shape traditional building materials such as wood, metal, and plaster into organic geometric forms inspired by nature.
Bernard Klevicka's sculpture captures the undulations of waveforms through his process of machine-pressing and hand-forming sheet metal. Through a variety of polishes and finishes, light reflects across the curved forms of his sculptures to create a sense of fluidity in their distortion of their surroundings.
Phil McGaughy's work harmoniously merges the deliberate forms of building with the accidental growth of nature. He constructs wooden scaffolding around driftwood, delineating and stabilizing their soft, organic constitution. And In his Coffee Spill Islands, he solidifies and extends liquid stains into plaster landforms. The artist states: "I like to view the world as a giant collaboration between all sorts of life and nonlife. A collaboration between wanting to build something and wanting to grow something."
Artist Bios
Bernard Klevickas currently works as a machinist for the New York City Sanitation Department, and his former employment included working as an art fabricator at Polich Tallix where he had constructed sculpture for Jeff Koons, Frank Stella, Louise Bourgeois, and other artists. His interest in labor intensive manufacturing techniques and industrial processes is carried over into his own artmaking and he has received several grants, awards, and honors including a Leadership; Light the Way Award from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an Individual Artist Grant from the Queens Council on the Arts and a residency with Materials for the Arts. Klevickas has exhibited his art throughout the U.S. including the Grand Rapids Art Museum, the Museum of Geometric and MADI Art in Dallas, Texas and at the Katonah Museum of Art in New York.
Phil McGaughy recently returned to the east coast to attend the University of Delaware after spending 25 years in the San Francisco Bay area. After graduating from the San Francisco Art Institute in1992, he spent ten years apprenticing with Louis Pearson, a modernist metal sculptor whom Phil credits with being one of his main influences. During that time, Phil also played in many bands and released three recordings under the stage name ‘Phil Crumar’. After Lou died in 2005, Phil felt compelled to combine the work Lou had been mentoring him in with his reinvigorated need to create his own artwork. In the last ten years he has supported his art and music careers doing interior house painting and faux finishing, techniques he honed while working with Lou. Recently, the plasterwork and various finishes he practiced in the trades are slowly making their way into his pieces.
