CHERYL
HUMPHREYS


TIME SENSITIVE

ON VIEW JULY 16 THROUGH AUGUST 13, 2022

Sarah Brook Gallery is thrilled to announce “Time Sensitive,” the gallery’s second solo exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist, Cheryl Humphreys. With this new body of work, the artist leaves behind the less sustainable aspects of printmaking and fully integrates holistic alternatives: natural plant dyes, hand-cut chipboard stencils, and printing with sunlight. Color and texture ebb and flow according to the passage of time. Experience gives way to experiment. Plan becomes play.

Whilst all of Humphreys’ works take paper as their baseline support, the final pieces (often appearing like mosaics or weavings) offer surface textures reminiscent of denim, satin or suede. A range of patinas with a bodily imprint manifest from the artist’s meticulous and ritualistic dyeing methods. The title work of the exhibition, Time Sensitive, is comprised of repeated compositional elements laid in the sun for varying time-frames: row one’s elements having been exposed for five hours, row nine’s for seven full days. The effect is a shimmering narrative that brings to mind mid-century textile design and also the evolution of the camera. Tidal I and Tidal II, meanwhile, are made of complimentary paper components hand-dipped in indigo vats anywhere from once for 30 seconds to ten times over three weeks to dry myriad layers of natural color into the paper fibers.

Exhibited here for the first time, the artist’s new series of Security Blankets are woven tapestries of up-cycled security envelopes Humphreys has been collecting since age 18. As they bake in the evolution of mass-produced paper design over decades, these works further emphasize the passage of time in Humphreys’ practice. Now, as the artist approaches motherhood, the Security Blanket works also carry postnatal images of warmth and soothing alongside memories of our parent’s generation of paper billing systems and stacks of responses-by-mail.

Like a recipe passed down through the ages, Humphreys’ artwork engages a rich lineage of process-driven making. She evokes, in particular, women artists at the heart of Modernism, such as Anni Albers and Sophie Taeuber-Arp, who reframed the dialogues around art and design, paper, textiles and collage. Simultaneously, Humphreys’ heightened attention to formal elements (purity of line, color and form) hint at Minimalism, achieving a balanced simplicity similar to that of Agnes Martin, whose pared-down compositions carry inverse proportions of gravitas and strength. Like Martin, Humphreys derives powerful meaning from how she makes, exploring rich human histories, discoveries in the natural world, as well as connections to and amplifications of her own life’s process.

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Cheryl Humphreys was born in 1986 in Ithaca, NY, and earned her BFA at Otis College of Art & Design, Los Angeles. Solo exhibitions include Sarah Brook Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Otra Vox, Los Angeles, CA and Paul Loya Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. Her work has been included in group presentations at the Long Beach Art Museum, Long Beach, CA; PULSE Art Fair, Miami, FL; DAC Gallery, Los Angeles, CA and Pocoapoco, Oaxaca, MX. Humphreys has completed residencies at Pocoapoco, Oaxaca, MX (2019), and Otra Vox, Los Angeles, CA (2021-21).


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Time Sensitive, 2022
Dye, ink and sunlight on paper
36 x 28 / 29.5 31.5 in  

Dye Study in Logwood & Madder Root,
2022 Logwood, whole madder root and ink
on paper
17 x 17 / 19 x 19 in

Dye Study in Marigold, Indigo & Iron, 2022
Indigo, marigold, iron and ink on paper
17 x 17 / 19 x 19 in

Dye Study in Madder, Iron & Indigo, 2022
Madder extract, iron, indigo and ink on paper
17 x 17 / 19 x 19 in

Dye Study in Indigo & Marigold, 2022
Indigo, marigold and ink on paper
17 x 17 / 19 x 19 in

Dye Study in Madder Root, 2022
Whole madder root and ink on paper
17 x 17 / 19 x 19 in

Dye Study in Marigold, 2022
Marigold and ink on paper
17 x 17 / 19 x 19 in

Dye Study in Coreopsis Flower, 2022
Coreopsis flowers and ink on paper
17 x 17 / 19 x 19 in

Dye Study Ghost, Neutral, 2022
Ink on paper
17 x 17 / 19 x 19 in

Dye Study in Logwood & Iron, 2022
Logwood, iron and ink on paper
17 x 17 / 19 x 19 in

Dye Study in Neutral, 2022
Ink and deboss on paper
17 x 17 / 19 x 19 in

Dye Study in Indigo, 2022
Indigo and ink on paper
17 x 17 / 19 x 19 in

Dye Study in Marigold & Indigo, 2022
Marigold, indigo and ink on paper
17 x 17 / 19 x 19 in

Somersaults, 2022
Marigold, ink and sunlight on paper
22.5 x 45 / 26 x 48 in 

Security Blanket I, 2004-2022
Security envelopes, thread
39 x 39 / 41.5 x 41.5 in

Security Blanket II, 2004-2022
Security envelopes, thread
26 x 26 / 29.5 x 29.5 in

 
Solstice, 2018-2022
Indigo, quebracho rojo, dye, sunlight, ink    and emboss on paper
30.5 x 25.5 / 33.5 x 29 in

Future Memory, 2020-2022
Marigold, indigo, dye, sunlight, ink and emboss on paper
30 x 26.5 / 33 x 29.5 in