Nina Johnson is proud to present Sour Tasting Liquid, an exhibition of new sculptures and functional objects by Katie Stout, opening on February 14 with a public reception (7-9 pm) and remaining on view through March 28. Across a variety of mediums and contexts, the Brooklyn-based Stout playfully disregards the distinctions between art and design, high and low, utility and extravagance. For her third exhibition at the gallery, she takes her singular treatment of domestic feminism to new material and geographic frontiers.
The works in Sour Tasting Liquid are a bricolage of materials and craft traditions: mosaic, porcelain, clay, and wicker merge to create a shifting and singular body of work. Though always process-oriented, here Stout’s practice rises to a new level of complexity and ambition. New materials and modes of working appear as her objects undulate between rigid forms and unexpected outcomes. Parts of the show are calm and composed, but elsewhere the objects burst with trinkets and mementos, shards of porcelain and studio detritus.
For Stout, this tension between repression and revelry is key. The gender games of the Victorian drawing room are never far from hand. Her vases and female figures embody the communities of women that have kept craft alive over generations; Stout’s mother taught her to weave and work with clay. In Sour Tasting Liquid she channels the handmade legacy of women’s work, pushing these classical traditions into subversive territory. It’s American craft for an age of American anxiety.
About Katie Stout
Katie Stout is regarded as one of the leading designers of her generation, her works have been featured in T Magazine, the New York Times, Apartmento, Artforum and numerous other publications. Her works have been widely exhibited in institutions ranging from the Anderson Ranch Art Center, to the Schloss Hollenegg in Austria, to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where her work is included in the permanent collection. Katie’s first solo exhibition was in Miami with Nina Johnson (then Gallery Diet) in 2015.
