“I love thinking of these images as communication from the far reaches of below and above, a way of connecting to the larger cycles of the universe, mysterious and unknowable.” Skye Gilkerson on her Coordinates, 2022

RWFA is pleased to present the premiere solo exhibition of works on paper by Skye Gilkerson, the artist's first in New York. Utilizing the process of paper marbling, Gilkerson generates abstractions in ink that transcend all sense of scale, perspective and dimension. The result is a body of work, redolent of topographic maps, describing the lands and seas as if encountered in dreams or on the constantly changing surfaces of the ocean.

 The images are formed as paper is floated in baths of water and ink in trays, and then subjected to sound vibrations captured from the extreme reaches of both Earth and the Heavens. Gilkerson explains, with the process of paper marbling, ink floats on the surface of water and then the pattern is captured with a piece of paper, leaving behind a monoprint. For this series, the water tray rests on large speakers playing sounds of unknown origin collected by NASA and NOAA from outer space and the deep sea, vibrating the surface of the water and generating the ink swirls. By allowing the natural pulsing of the sound waves to determine the imagery, Gilkerson lets the process be self-determining, pushing her art into an ego-less realm of accident and gratitude.