OHT Gallery Boston

Previous Exhibits

Recent Work

Steve Novick

November 2 - 24, 2007
Reception: Friday, November 2, 5:30-7:30pm

Like a wise parent or skilled writer, Steve Novick realizes that a few well edited words/ideas/images go a long way. Whether hung on the wall, displayed on a narrow shelf, or encased in a vitrine, the objects in his exhibition Recent Work at O·H+T Gallery reflect a new self-confidence and clarity.

Novick's 2005 exhibition at O·H+T marked a transition from earlier, quasi-functional objects to more conceptual ones. He also switched materials, from industrial parts to colorful household detritus such as the toys and plastic whatnots usually consigned to a recycling bin. Novick's change in materials has fostered a new simplicity of form and color, while capitalizing on the more intimate scale of the domestic elements. In 3D, a wall piece composed of two wooden blocks faced with squares of pink and blue wood-grained shelf paper, Novick toys with formal issues reminiscent of Donald Judd, while using reverse trompe l'oeil to question the 3-dimensionality of his object.

Trophy (at right), an haut-relief sculpture, is composed of a blue plastic crescent, an animal's horn, and a yellow ball. Although this work raises more questions that it answers, it manages to sustain a comfortable balance between humor, unsettling conceptual themes, formal elements, and the disparate objects that make up the piece. In so doing, it embodies the key elements that Novick mentions in his artist's statement:

Stripped down visually, concepts laid bare.
Perception as a game.
Nature filtered through culture.
Humor above, disquiet below.

Steve Novick lives and works in Somerville, MA. He has a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and and MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Steve has exhibited his work extensively, including the upcoming Aqua Art Miami/Wynwood 07. He has been awarded the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and a Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant, and is an Associate Professor at New England School of Art and Design, Suffolk University. This is Steve Novick's second one-person exhibition at O·H+T Gallery.