by Meghan Richter
Reductive abstraction is at play with Sand T Kalloch’s new works. She has focused her style around a minimalistic approach to color, using only one in each piece. Each piece shares a simplistic color scheme, and the same simple elements to capture geometric beauty. She’s been working in this style since 2007, and has broken it down to, “point, line and surface.”
Each monochromatic piece alludes to different shades by proximity of one graphite line to another — the denser the lines, the darker the shade would appear. Being that darkness is the absence of color, Kalloch mimics the use of lighter shades by layering resin, and playing with dots of resin that adhere to no particular pattern. These resin droplets catch light like raindrops on a window, and add dimension to each piece.
These, and some of her newer work, is on display through the end of July at Lanoue Gallery in Boston’s SoWa District. These works, entitled, “Connecting,” incorporate minimalism as well, but have strayed from her original design. When prompted about the change, she said that it had originally been somewhat accidental, and that “depending on the room temperature,” sometimes “the resin dries too fast.” She had been throwing pieces away when this happens, until she realized that she could appropriate the materials in a different way. She began cutting the hardened resin into pieces, and creating anew.
Her more recent works still include the same simple elements to achieve a similar feel, even in black and white. The circles were ordered in lines, but not symmetrical, and both the black and the white piece were able to capture different colored light refracting over the larger round droplets, “distorting the light like a lens.”
(Sand T Kalloch’s solo show continues through July 31 at the Lanoue Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave #31, Boston, Mass. For more information, call (617) 262-4400.)