Ilana Crispi
All Sides of a Sphere

January 6 – January 28, 2007

little tree gallery
3412 22nd St @ Guerrero
San Francisco, CA 94110
415.643.4929
http://www.littletreegallery.com
info@littletreegallery.com

little tree gallery is pleased to present the work of Ilana Crispi in her solo show entitled All Sides of a Sphere. Ms. Crispi will be showing a collection of 12 photographs that are all at once intriguing and striking, exemplifying the subtle force of her work.

Ilana Crispi has spent a good portion of her career working with ceramics. Taking clay, seeds, and legumes, Crispi forms spheres and places them against a white background, playing with depth and perspective. Each sphere is unique in material composition, color, and surface texture. A select group of spheres exhibit the early stages of life. The result is a fascinating alien aesthetic of sprouting grass, meandering root systems, and splitting seedpods captured in front of a minimal backdrop. Each orb is its own world: unique, familiar, and foreign. While expressing a multitude of organic colors and textures, the photographs solidly remain part of a cohesive thought.

All Sides of a Sphere is inspired by Sol LeWitt’ s recent work entitled All Sides of a Sphere lit from above, four sides and all their combinations. “The result,” Ms. Crispi explains, “was a minimal and beautiful collection of shadows, light, and form. It was also sterile.” Ms. Crispi follows LeWitt’s direction, but infuses the work with “something real and very much alive.”

Among Ilana Crispi’s numerous honors and accomplishments, Ms. Crispi was a recipient of an Eklind Fellowship; a resident artist at the de Young Museum and The Legion of Honor in San Francisco; and an artist in residence at the Rochester Folk Art Guild. Ms. Crispi is a recent graduate of Mills’ MFA program and has shown extensively in New York, Los Angles, and throughout the Bay Area.

little tree gallery is pleased to present Ms. Crispi’s work for a second time. For inquiries and questions regarding the show, please contact Forest Swartout or Brent Large by phone at (415) 643-4929 or by email at info@littletreegallery.com.