CHERYL DONEGAN / WILL ROGAN

Michael Benevento is pleased to present a two-person exhibition featuring Cheryl Donegan and Will Rogan. 

Cheryl Donegan is a New York based conceptual artist, primarily known for her bold, lo-fi video work produced in the 1990s. Direct, irreverent, and infused with an ironic eroticism, the video works put a subversive spin on issues relating to sex, gender, art-making and art history, exorcising confining clichés and sexist archetypes by purging them through performance. Using her own body as metaphor, she executed performative actions before the camera; these performances often resulted in or related to process painting and drawing.

Donegan presents a series of ‘paintings’ executed in 2014, loosely titled Resist. For this exhibition, process becomes performance as Donegan adapts a simplified batik method found online. The artist repeatedly dyes and washes checked or dot-based fabrics. The painterly process is based in simple acts of domestic labor, the application and removal of a liquid adhesive or wax, leaves ghostly surface marks on the fabric. The result of her work is a seamless integration of mark and surface—a visual effect much like the digital impression on a tablet or computer screen. The seemingly intuitive lines, are in fact, preplanned; an air of the provisional betrays a suggestion of spatial illusion. 

Will Rogan lives and works in West Brookfield, VT. Their multifaceted practice often reflects on the prosaic manifestations of time’s passage, identified in their local environs. Taking the form of photography, sculpture, and video, Rogan’s work possesses a subtlety and quietude that inspires thoughtful consideration of the material effects of time and space. Often exploring the multitude of ways in which different registers of time are perceived.

For this exhibition Rogan’s sculptures are created using found or unwanted scraps of wood, challenging the conventional norms of wood-working by embracing the imperfections of handmade artistry. Working intuitively, Rogan creates sculptural objects reminiscent of indigenous masks or cartoon faces, subverted wall clocks, or fragmented mobiles. Overripe and under nourished at the same time, these objects take on a double-meaning; alive / dead, high / low, comedy / tragedy; fusing both elements together hoping to craft a narrative where there was none.

For this exhibition, both Donegan and Rogan resist mechanized mastery, resulting in sculpture and painting full of intuitive, open-ended pursuits.