Mike Cloud Circle Chat

Press Release

In the North Gallery, Corbett vs. Dempsey is delighted to present Circle Chat, an exhibition of new paintings by Mike Cloud. This is the gallery's first show with the artist.

Mike Cloud (b. 1974) is a Chicago-based artist whose complex and vibrant paintings often utilize conventional support materials organized in unconventional ways. Stretcher bars, normally brought together at perpendicular angles, are instead conjoined into star or diamond shapes, one sometimes crossing in front of another like a highway offramp; canvas may be affixed to the front of the bar, rather than stretched around it, and thin strips of canvas might cross the field like streamers or banners. Are Cloud's paintings abstract? This is a complicated question to address. Are they representational? Yes, they represent specific and concrete things in the world – people, places, objects. Do they represent these things through visual likeness? Not so much. Instead, Cloud invokes other forms of semiosis, producing meanings through a variety of means – written language, linguistic permutations, website urls, hieroglyphs, pictograms, and other symbolic imagery such as hand-birds. Again, are they abstract? Yes, Cloud's paintings are abstract in the sense that they condense vast amounts of information into a limited space. In the new works presented in Circle Chat, Cloud has included two canvases that utilize hinges to fold into floor sculptures, one hinged horizontally like a construction site sign ("Oyster Oil"), the other hinged vertically, sitting on the floor like a scrim ("Kingdom of Luang Phrabang"). Highly specific, yet mysterious and spring-loaded, these virtuosic, operatic works are ultimately meditations on the fundaments of painting – color, facture, form, speed – and the relationship between the act of interpretation and being in the world.  

Mike Cloud's solo exhibitions include: Thomas Erben Gallery, NY (2014, 2019, 2024); The Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, Chicago, IL (2017); Max Protetch Gallery, NY (2008); MoMA PS1, NY (2005). His work has been included in group exhibitions such as Good Weather, Chicago, IL; the American Academy of Arts in Letters, NYC, NY; the Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum, Slovak Republic; White Columns, NYC, NY; Honor Fraser Gallery, CA; Ceysson & Bénétière, NYC, NY; Green Gallery, Milwaukee, WI; Good Children Gallery, LA; Marianne Boesky Gallery, NY; White Columns, NY; Max Protetch, NY; Apexart, NYC.