Sam Stewart, Daisy Chain

Volume Gallery is pleased to announce Sam Stewart, Daisy Chain, opening September 16th from 5-8pm at 1709 W Chicago Ave, Chicago IL 60622.

Daisy Chain addresses the suburban home good, finding curiosity in its mundanity. Though not necessarily unique, the source material evokes a familiarity that can be sentimental. And yet, Stewart has recast these objects via modest shifts in scale, collapsing the American vernacular with American modernism. At what point in losing function or practicality does a chain become a screen, or a ladder a chaise lounge? And conversely, how many working details or weld marks does a designed object, or to put it more bluntly, a piece of furniture, allow for? 

Positioned away from the walls, the works in Daisy Chain — a roof, a couch, a fence, a ladder, a trampoline — appear as a living room in slight disarray as if guests had moved the furniture around or, the works are just so indicatively animate.  

In Daisy Chain, the roof is on the wall, its procession of miniature shingles, with its blunt bitumen glitter, recurrent and sobering. But then there are the two dormers pitched steeply downward, almost drooping. Sleepyhead undercuts its own logic with a little pareidolic joke. Extended Release is an array of vertical and horizontal oval-shaped segments that appear continuously slotted into each other at a 90-degree angle. Made of inflatable brown polyvinyl fabric, the work’s notched progression pays homage to Lincoln Logs. Stewart’s trampoline (Yeeted Image) sits tilted, reflecting the upper corner of the gallery. Privacy Screen does not really fulfill its namesake, except for at one specific spot. Made simply by welding each subsequent link, the chain stands with splayed feet, almost fantastically. Dad Joke operates similarly, an eight-foot straight aluminum ladder excised of two triangles and pushed together. The only evidence of its alteration is a lovely “stack of dimes” weld. Titled Lefty, a graduated stack of 12 lidded oval boxes, rising in a soothing selection of resins: faded burgundy, butter yellow, pewter blue, are a puckish (pudgy) homage to the bentwood originals that the Shakers made by hand. 

Daisy Chain will be on view at Volume Gallery through October 29, 2022.

Image: Sam Stewart, Yeeted Image, 2022