Mel Kendrick: Early Woodprints | Recent Sculpture

The Drawing Room is pleased to present "Mel Kendrick | Early Woodprints & Recent Sculpture", opening June 30 and on view through July 31. At center stage are three dynamic mahogany sculptures with black and white patterned surfaces and eccentrically shaped voids. The exhibition also includes a series of woodprints and a unique 9’ x 8’ woodblock on paper that Kendrick made by sawing either hardwood or plywood, then reconfiguring the elements and printing from the newly formed matrices. The exhibition highlights the conceptual and technical synergy between these two bodies of work. In both, the artist’s process originates with drawing and cutting and culminates in striking compositions of his original material.

Kendrick began to show his raw wood sculpture in New York City in 1974. Inspired then, as now, by trees and patterns of wood grain, his four-decade career spans critically acclaimed exhibitions of small and large-scale wood and concrete forms.

In 1990 he collaborated with master printmaker Leslie Miller at The Grenfell Press on the individual woodprints featured in this show and a related portfolio of six prints. Inspired by these projects, Kendrick took a hiatus from sculpture in 1993 to create an important series of monumental woodblocks made using 4’ x 8’ sheets of plywood.

See below for full press release and selected works.