Sally Saul

Knit of Identity

September 10 – October 29, 2017

Opening Reception: Sunday, September 10, 6 – 8pm

“…Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and increase, always sex,

Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life.”

– Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”, 1855-1892

Rachel Uffner Gallery is glad to present Knit of Identity, Sally Saul’s first solo exhibition in New York. The artist has borrowed the titular phrase from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”, a poem which evolved with its author over the span of almost forty years. Saul’s choice of this particular poem to frame her new body of work speaks to the personal nature of her sculptures – that of the eternal unfolding of an artist.

Reflecting on mythology, as well as on humans’ relationship to the natural world, Saul will present a series of freestanding and hung ceramic sculptures, each crafted with a subversive and playful comedic stance. Saul writes of her work:

“Memory, or an editing of memory, informs several of my pieces – material in a quilt, a pattern, the shape and feeling of a room – fragments that evoke a time and place, refuge, physicality, and act as talisman.

The animals are an homage to the life around us we momentarily notice during our days, and nights – Bees in the Bee Balm, wild turkeys in step strutting through the yard, noisy Blue jays, cicadas’ syncopated rhythm reminding us this is late summer. How long will these be with us as we renew our ‘depressing record of destruction,’ to quote Rachel Carson in ‘Silent Spring’ (written 55 years ago).”

Practicing as a sculptor for over thirty years, Saul has seen a recent resurgence in her career, participating in exhibitions at Jack Hanley Gallery (New York, NY), Venus over Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA), Underdonk (Brooklyn, NY), Canada Gallery (New York, NY), Zurcher Gallery (New York, NY), Columbus Cultural Arts Center (Columbus, OH). Saul lives and works in Germantown, NY.