Paige Beeber’s recent paintings on view in “Phantom Thread” at Freight + Volume extend her commitment to mark-making as a metaphor for psychological and social transformations. With a grammar of marks that reference weaving and needlepoint, Beeber shows how small, diligent acts of making and repairing—which are often gendered feminine—can be even more heroic and romantic than gratuitous acts of violence.
Beeber created some of the works in this show after hand-cutting her older paintings into thin strips, which became the raw material for the new work. Although the process of cutting was painstaking, she found it cathartic, which inspired her to host an ongoing series of “cutting parties” at her studio where woman-identified and nonbinary artists could come together and cut paintings—hers or theirs —in a safe, welcoming atmosphere. In addition to being a therapeutic act on its own, cutting up old paintings is a potent metaphor for breaking old patterns of behavior or cutting free of toxic relationships. Beeber’s cutting parties are a form of social sculpture that both complements her painting practice and grounds it. In today’s highly individualistic, career-focused art world, Beeber returns to the space of collectivist artisanal production to find healing for herself and others.
By turns fast and slow, rough-hewn and meticulous, her marks weave tales of patient effort and epic adventure, of self-discovery and communal healing.
Paige Beeber “Phantom Thread” is on view at Freight+Volume in Tribeca May 5-June 3. With an opening to celebrate the artist on May 5, 6-8PM.
IMAGE:
Paige Beeber
Fast Slow Disco, 2023
Acrylic, oil and linen collage on canvas
40h x 36w in
101.60h x 91.44w cm
Photographed by Adam Riech courtesy of Freight+Volume.
