GINA KUKULSKI | SHELF
March 17 - April 19, 2024
What markedly characterizes Gina Kukulski’s work is a reverence for pressure, gravity, and time. The minimalist inclination toward prefabricated materials, seriality, and spatial experience are also underscoring qualities in her art. Through personal economic interventions and replication, she offers viewers a perspectival shift toward the everyday and provisional.
Much of Kukulski’s sculptural and two-dimensional work is comprised of readymade paper and adhesives. Sourcing the paper from stores, manufacturers, and second-hand distributors, she individually cuts each piece by hand, voiding any sort of commercial uniformity. Though the paper has taken on an imperfect form through cutting, the pre-existent quality of the material offers a constancy concerning color. The work is assembled into uniform stacks of equal quantities, and then thin coats of adhesive, be it a padding compound or acrylic polymer, are applied to the side of the works rendering them uniform and solid.
In the work Green-Ochre Cubes with Orange, Red, Yellow, and Brown, the particular forms are composed of a green-ochre paper accented by a single circular cut, introducing a selected secondary color to each of the works. The solid mass of the paper equates to 10 quires or 250 sheets for each unit. The resultant shape is a 3-inch cube.
Gina Kukulski (b. 1993) is a Michigan-based multidisciplinary artist. In 2015 she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from Aquinas College. Kukulski has been included in various exhibitions including Light at CICA Museum, Gimpo, South Korea, and Grounded: A Solo Exhibition at Cerasus Studio in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In 2017, she carried out a residency at Proyecto 'Ace: Buenos Aires, Argentina. Kukulski currently lives and works in Grand Rapids, Michigan.