Bryan Crockett

Drawn Out of My Mind

May 20 - June 24, 2005
540 West 26th Street

Press Release

Lehmann Maupin would like to announce an exhibition of new sculptures, drawings and paintings by Bryan Crockett. This is Crockett's second solo exhibition at Lehmann Maupin.

Bryan Crockett's previous reflections on science and technology's authority in our society have shifted inward to investigations of himself. Drawn Out of My Mind is a sincere and humorous portrait of the artist estranged and lost within his mind. For this exhibition Crockett will divide the gallery into two spaces, presenting installations meant to illustrate a struggle between his two realms of thought. Here Crockett has taken inspiration from the myth of Daphne and Apollo and the tree as a representation of genealogy and knowledge. Solipsist, a 10-foot tree growing on a rock with a carved portrait of the artist with his head ingrown into the tree is the central sculpture in the front room. Surrounded by watercolors and another smaller sculpture this room is meant to depict the Apollonian realm, one of order and pictorial idealization.

Counter-balancing the first space, the other is frantic and compulsive. Crockett created a series of drawings by recording his sketches and ideas onto one paper, resulting in a wild tangle of images that he likens to the cosmological charts of his mind. Crockett depicts this Dionysian realm by scattering his drawings on the painted black walls of the gallery with several of his maquettes, unfinished models and a large relief sculpture carved into a felled log. The disorienting room deemphasizes the structure and architecture of the gallery suggesting the erratic nature of the artists' mind and process.

Bryan Crockett was born in Santa Barbara, California in 1970 and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His work has been in many major group exhibition including The Uncanny, curated by Mike Kelley at the Tate Liverpool and Open House: Working in Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Museum among others. Since graduating with an MFA in sculpture from Yale University, Crockett has exhibited at the Kunsthalle Basel, Exit Art, Fotouhi Cramer Gallery, and the 1997 Whitney Biennial. In that same year he was the recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award.

For further information or to view images, please contact us at info@lehmannmaupin.com.

Exhibition Works

Ingrown, 2005 ink and colored pencl on wood veneer 16.75 x 22 inches 42.5 x 55.9 cm LM8571


Ingrained, 2005 ink and colored pencl on wood veneer 16.75 x 22 inches (paper) 42.5 x 55.9 cm 20 x 25.25 inches (framed) 50.8 x 64.1 cm LM8570


Labyrinth In My Mind, 2004 colored pencil on canvas 82 x 76 x 2 inches 208.3 x 193 x 5.1 cm LM7634


Constellations In My Mind #2, 2003 colored pencil on paper 48 x 50 inches (paper) 121.9 x 127 cm 53.5 x 55.5 inches (framed) 135.9 x 141 cm LM7441


Solipsist, 2005 polyurethane and flocking 287 x 54 x 47 inches 729 x 137.2 x 119.4 cm LM8843


Male Ghost, 2005 aqua resin and polyurethane 23 x 61.5 x 32.5 inches 58.4 x 156.2 x 82.6 cm Edition of 3 LM8854


Female Ghost, 2005 aqua resin and polyurethane 27 x 99.5 x 44 inches 68.6 x 252.7 x 111.8 cm Edition of 3 LM8844