NADA New York 2023

Wendy White’s After Calder works—framed canvases with suspended sculptures attached—ask the viewer to reconsider what constitutes a painting by challenging art historical conventions of representational painting as solely a space for illusion.

Inspired in part by Alexander Calder’s prototypical works from the late-1930s, each piece juxtaposes an atmospheric surface with a suspended sculpture, expanding the traditional notion of “focal point” into three dimensions. In her After Calder series, White combines iconic elements of her visual language, including gestural abstraction, pop culture symbology, and sculptural adaptations to painting. Suspending her signature black Dibond sculptures against grainy, raw canvases airbrushed in muted sunset palettes, White creates deep and shallow space simultaneously. Presented in matte black and pared down to their formal essence, each symbol remains quietly suspended between real and painterly space.

These works continue a decades-long exploration of art history and pop culture symbolism––both in critique and homage––suggesting that there are no new marks, only new combinations.