FERNBERGER

Los Angeles-based artist Nik Gelormino has spent the last two decades making artworks out of wood and metal that resist categorization between art and design, enjoying the gray area between the two. The artworks in Well represent a turn for the artist and present works that are decidedly sculptural. Gelormino’s works tend to depict or reference objects that have utility—cars, knives or letter openers, hands, tools, houses—and have been made strange somehow, presented as precious objects encased in carefully constructed wood and glass vitrines, as though reliquaries from a highly industrious foreign culture.

Well includes five sculptures; four very recent, and one much older (a carved piece of driftwood bearing a set of teeth from 2016), that display a breadth of typologies within his practice while also introducing new forms, such as the hitchhiker’s thumb. Viewers who have followed Gelormino’s work will recognize his use of house iconography, for example. However, this sculptural iteration is “protected” with brass rivets around its edges, which begs the question: “Protected from whom? From what?”

This tension between recognition of form and strangeness, not to mention the rough and refined tension of the materials, brings to mind the enduring legacy of H. C. Westermann. This grandpère of American conceptualism and Pop art, particularly here on the West Coast, has exerted a strong influence on Gelormino’s playful, engaging sculpture. The title, Well, points to the multi-valent quality of the artist’s work–it carries many meanings. Similarly to Westermann, language has an important role in Gelormino’s work. He places significance in the titles of his work and tends to engrave the written word, often independent of the title, onto his works in a way that is not legible all at once. He uses text to physically guide and encourage the viewer through close examination, around alternate views of his sculptural objects.

In addition to a suite of sculptures, Well includes two works on paper from 2016 that each feature a hand igniting a disposable lighter. To Gelormino, there is an overtly spiritual element: “a hand bringing light, creating form, illuminating that which is and separating it from that which is not. Creation. Destruction. Birth. Death.” In a way, these ink and watercolor works could be seen as depictions of the artist’s own hands: the site of creation. As with the sculptural objects in the exhibition, these paintings convey the painstakingly careful process through which Gelormino made them. Each painting contains thousands of brushstrokes, his pictorial mark-making mirrors the marks of his carving tool on the wooden surfaces of his sculptural works.

Regardless of medium or scale, all of the works in the exhibition—and Gelormino’s works generally—emphasize the human hand and imply touch, while creating a tension that arises from their intricate details and uncertain utility. A torch, a talisman, a hitchhiker’s thumb suggest ceremonial usage, but in what circumstance would that usage arise? Is it celebratory? An object of remembrance? In the words of Oscar Wilde, “To define is to limit.”

Nik Gelormino (b. 1986 San Francisco) lives and works in Los Angeles. He received his BFA from The Cooper Union, New York in 2008. Gelormino’s work has been seen in numerous solo and two artist exhibitions at galleries such as Sea View, Los Angeles; House of Seiko, San Francisco; Gallery 12.26, Los Angeles; and Old Room, New York. Group shows include Marta, Los Angeles; Bel Ami, Los Angeles; Office Baroque, Brussels; Sans Titre, Paris; Venus Over Manhattan, New York; Jan Kaps, Cologne; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Arturo Bandini, Los Angeles and Artists Space, New York.

Nik Gelormino (b. 1986 San Francisco) lives and works in Los Angeles. He received his BFA from The Cooper Union, New York in 2008. Gelormino’s work has been seen in numerous solo and two artist exhibitions at galleries such as Sea View, Los Angeles; House of Seiko, San Francisco; Gallery 12.26, Los Angeles; and Old Room, New York. Group shows include Marta, Los Angeles; Bel Ami, Los Angeles; Office Baroque, Brussels; Sans Titre, Paris; Venus Over Manhattan, New York; Jan Kaps, Cologne; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Arturo Bandini, Los Angeles and Artists Space, New York.