present — House Of Seiko

Cross Lypka

Tarantula

June 29 - August 11, 2024

Opening reception:

June 29, 2024
5:00 - 9:00 pm

checklist
inquiries: cole@houseofseiko.info

We are thrilled to announce the opening of Tarantula, an exhibition of new work by the Bay Area-based duo Cross Lypka.

Tyler Cross (b. 1992, Lancaster, CA) and Kyle Lypka (b. 1987, Philadelphia, PA) live and work in Oakland, California.

Cross Lypka is the moniker for Tyler Cross and Kyle Lypka, long-time partners and artistic collaborators. Their working process in ceramic follows a practical exchange of tasks. Tyler draws a lexicon of visual forms, Kyle interprets and hand-builds from this repertoire, they edit,
Tyler glazes, and Kyle fires. Lastly, subtle surface treatments and sealants are applied. The works that emerge reflect this back-and-forth trade, in partnership with the material’s own desires and constraints.

What does it mean to take something porous, imperfect, shrinking, warping, issue-filled... and adapt it to the rigidity of an architecture?

For this exhibition, the pair have pivoted to making works in response to the space’s structural conditions. Rather than enlarging existing forms in the practice, they created segmented sculptures with systems of repeated components. One can imagine these objects stretching or multiplying themselves across a room; expanding the intervals between ceramic elements to scale to a space. Thus, a kind of elasticity is achieved in glass and stone.

Forms referenced internally with language like “X, book, shovel, F” play new roles in the project. Building on classical interior architecture, the works perform as columns, moldings and spacial protrusions that adorn the gallery. Touching distinct corners and verticals of the space, the works narrate the walls in form-based phrases.

The fired sculptures bear fleeting compositions. Strategically glazed, their matte colors drain via channels and spillways. The resulting surfaces are left stained in directions that toy with the room’s gravity. This depicted movement is contained at times by trims of sandy flashing where
the works meet the walls.

What happens to site-responsive sculpture when it leaves?

Stone vertebrae, paneled enclosures, buttresses and bullnose end-caps ... bound by the kiln, by the truck and by the gallery window ... kept in eyes, in images and in thoughts ... nestled in paper, in boxes, broken down and rearranged ... still holding the shape, or potential of a corner,
of a column, of a room ... adaptation as a mode of survival, to escape ruin, and to ensure an ongoing response.

Jesse Stecklow, 2024

photography courtesy of Graham Holoch