Josh Tonsfeldt
Lacking a standard operating procedure or prioritized material, Tonsfeldt ‘s work is culled from experiential residue more than formal studio practice. Working on whim and through the manipulation of materials and relationships close at hand, his sculptures, videos, and photographic works are placed in conversation together causing further ripples of insight and possible understanding. Often beginning with personal history, degrees of removal are enacted onto materials and form. Disrupting fixed moments in a photograph by intervening in each layer of the process from capturing, storing, organizing and printing, the subject is abstracted into something broader and more universal.
In 2013, for concurrent exhibitions in New York and Belgium, Tonsfeldt began with a diagrammatic layering of three places: the floor plans of an abandoned family home in Iowa, Simon Preston Gallery, and Galerie VidalCuglietta. The central component in both gallery’s shows is a structure which follows the outline of the home which burned down several years ago. Each exhibition space represents overlapping sections of the home here represented by eighteen plaster casts of the gallery floor and traces of furniture. Tonsfeldt sifted through and collected materials from around the house, and these elements, along with photographs and video from the site …
Lacking a standard operating procedure or prioritized material, Tonsfeldt ‘s work is culled from experiential residue more than formal studio practice. Working on whim and through the manipulation of materials and relationships close at hand, his sculptures, videos, and photographic works are placed in conversation together causing further ripples of insight and possible understanding. Often beginning with personal history, degrees of removal are enacted onto materials and form. Disrupting fixed moments in a photograph by intervening in each layer of the process from capturing, storing, organizing and printing, the subject is abstracted into something broader and more universal.
In 2013, for concurrent exhibitions in New York and Belgium, Tonsfeldt began with a diagrammatic layering of three places: the floor plans of an abandoned family home in Iowa, Simon Preston Gallery, and Galerie VidalCuglietta. The central component in both gallery’s shows is a structure which follows the outline of the home which burned down several years ago. Each exhibition space represents overlapping sections of the home here represented by eighteen plaster casts of the gallery floor and traces of furniture. Tonsfeldt sifted through and collected materials from around the house, and these elements, along with photographs and video from the site serve as starting points for other works within the show.
Tonsfeldt has had solo exhibitions at Rowhouse Project in Baltimore, Simon Preston Gallery in New York, and Franco Soffiantino Gallery in Turin. His work has been included in group exhibitions at SculptureCenter in New York, White Columns in New York, Ambach and Rice in Los Angeles, Mitchell Innes & Nash in New York, Massimo De Carlo in Milan, and Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York.
Courtesy of Simon Preston Gallery
