Fisher Parrish Gallery is pleased to present "Tactical Grace" — a two-person exhibition of painting and sculptural works by New York artists Tricia Keightley and Chris Beeston — which explores the mechanical underpinnings and systematic design essential to each artist’s practice.

Tricia Keightley’s vivid canvases resemble technical manuals and industrial illustrations on a monumental scale. Although seemingly computer-generated, Keightley’s architectural and geometric images are hand-painted and improvised, layer by layer, into buoyantly complex, colorful structures. These mechanical abstractions, as she calls them, reflect her enduring interest in unseen infrastructural systems and their quiet, spanning place in our imagination. Over the years, Keightley has developed a compelling personal vocabulary of imaginary rivets, cords and counterweights that can exist only in two dimensions. The final improvised mash-ups are liberated from issues of function or even physical possibility, yet they have the familiar, earnest taxonomy of patent submissions and engineering plans.

Chris Beeston’s mechanical assemblages and mathematical sculptures draw on his hobbies: repairing electronics, collecting street metal, reading science fiction, and digesting technical information. His meticulous works elevate everyday items—such as 99-cent store Tupperware—into objects of greater intention and augmented functionality, without concealing their simple origins. Street-sweeper bristles collected from the gutter are bolted into complex geodesic sculptures; fragments of disused objects, like pill bottles and drywall anchors, are carefully soldered into lamps; and perfectly intricate, nearly 200-sided polyhedra are patiently assembled from nothing but cardstock and glue.

When paired, Tricia Keightley’s paintings act as a sort of abstract blueprint or potential for Chris Beeston’s odd mechanical inventions. Please join us for the opening reception of "Tactical Grace" on Friday, September 14th, 2018 from 6–9pm. For further information, please email Zoe Fisher at info@fisherparrish.com.

Tricia Keightley (b. 1968, Alexandria, VA) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and received her B.F.A. in Painting from San Francisco Art Institute in 1990. Keightley has exhibited both nationally and internationally, and was awarded the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Painting in 2002, the Mac Dowell Colony Residency in 2010, and the Millay Colony Residency in 2016. In 2012, Keightley was commissioned by the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority Arts for Transit program to create a permanent work at the Hunters Point Avenue Subway station in Long Island City.

Chris Beeston (b. 1985, Mooresville, NC) was raised in rural North Carolina, and moved to New York after receiving a BA in Studio Art at Davidson College in 2008. He currently lives and works in Ridgewood, Queens and has worked as a studio assistant to Tom Sachs since 2009. Beeston has exhibited at Patrick Parrish Gallery, Coustof Waxman, Colette, and The Hole.