Social ledger
3 October – 7 November 2024
Nick Modrzewski
Curated by Maximiliane Leuschner
Sarah Kravitz is delighted to present Social Ledger, a new exhibition ofpaintings by Nick Modrzewski, the Los Angeles-based artist’s first soloshow in the UK. Curated by Maximiliane Leuschner, the exhibition willopen on 3 October 2024 and run through 2 November.
Reminiscent of accounting ledgers, which precisely record a company’stransactions, social ledgers capture human activity: each flow of the bodyacross another body, every conversation, debate, and disagreement.Modrzewski seeks to record these engagements in his paintings, looselydepicting bodies as they move through a vast network of social entanglements.In doing so, he explores how painting can function as a dynamic ledger, markedwith the often-abstract inscriptions of human interaction, human interaction.
The dualities within the paintings—flatness and volume, construction anddeletion, opacity and transparency—mirror the tensions inherent within anyrecord-keeping system, where moments of clarity dissolve into ambiguity, andthe ‘ledger’ gives way to a more fluid, elusive account.
Nick Modrzewski
Record No.1
2024
Acrylic and charcoal on linen
220 x 200 cm
Meanwhile, fragmentedand distorted forms, caught in frenetic moments of movement andmetamorphosis, reflect how bodies might slip between categories as they are‘logged’ in the social ledger, shaped by etiquette, law and language. Ultimately,the exhibition explores the ways in which painting, through its accumulation ofmarks, traces and erasures, can archive the body as it shifts physical states andengages with the socially constructed world.
Nick Modrzewski
Record No.3
2024
Acrylic and charcoal on linen
180 x 160 cm
Nick Modrzewski (b.1988, Melbourne) lives and works in Los AngelesHe holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Victorian College of the Artsand a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Melbourne.
Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at COMA (Sydney); TheCabin (Los Angeles); Discordia (Melbourne); Watch This Space (AliceSprings); First Draft (Sydney) and The Melbourne Art Fair.
Nick Modrzewski
Record No.2
2024
Acrylic and charcoal on linen
61 x 76 cm
His work has been included in group exhibitions at theTimes Museum(Guangzhou, China); The Armory Show with Ames Yavuz (New York); theInstitute of Contemporary Arts (Singapore); the Monash UniversityMuseum of Art (Melbourne, curated by Jennifer Higgie); La Trobe Art In-stitute (Bendigo); Blindside (Melbourne); Sydney Contemporary; COMA;the Margaret Lawrence Gallery (Melboure) and the Contour SculptureBiennial (Canberra).
Nick Modrzewski
Record No.7
2024
Acrylic and charcoal on linen
150 x 130 cm
Nick Modrzewski
Record No.8
2024
Acrylic and charcoal on linen
150 x 130 cm