Tala is thrilled to announce 𝗧𝗛𝗥𝗢𝗔𝗧, a solo exhibition by KC Crow Maddux, opening on Saturday December 13, 6–9PM

This exhibition marks the artist’s first return to Chicago in nearly twenty years: first exhibiting at the Renaissance Society as part of 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘺 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘱𝘴𝘦𝘴 (2006), Maddux went on to present his inaugural solo exhibition at gescheidle (2007). Curated once again by Susan Gescheidle, KC Maddux’s newest series of dioramic paintings commemorates his decades-long conceptualization of symbolisms and visual architectures that inhabit the spaces where binary language fails and dissolves.

Maddux constructs handmade frames to surround his recessed airbrush painted collages, which allows the work to be seen only through the opening of a silhouette. Inside, his paintings are built by layering images of architectural and bodily glyphs, rendering them indeterminate yet charged with a somatic, visceral disintegration. By abstracting the figure through a lexicon of voids, frames, and shadows, Maddux erodes the historically limited nomenclature of identity and instigates a new visual vernaculars that more accurately articulate the complexities of the physical and social body. Here, he conceptualizes the orifice as the beginning of semiotic production - an open maw where the internal, digestive process of language-making is revealed and new meaning can emerge.