Cirrus Gallery & Cirrus Editions, Ltd. is pleased to present "sub-shapes," a group exhibition that deconstructs various definitions of figuration. The exhibition is the second in a series of shows that elaborate on the concept of "figures" in the 21st century.

As we have mentioned before, in terms of art, the figures usually refers to those works in which recognizable shapes are present. Yet as we consider this word more carefully and delve into its myriad of meanings we can come to understand the whole world through figures; people who shaped history; the ratio of gasses in our atmosphere; the numbers we have attributed to time and space; compositions of sound we call music; signs we read as language and forms created as representation of what was seen and thought that later turned into art.

For this ongoing exhibition project, that began in April 2021 with the show "Figuration," we consider figurative work, broadly understood as a way to move away from abstraction, a way to share narratives and express identity or a as a way to converse and critique with realistic representation. In this iteration of the project, sub-shapes introduces five themes or “figures” that we have distinguished: GEOMETRY, CODING, NARRATIVE, MOVEMENT and PATTERN. In the future, we will elaborate and dedicate specific exhibitions concerning these five sub-categories of the figure.

The themes in sub-shapes are featured across the works of the 15 artists whose work embodies and/or is rooted in GEOMETRY: Farah Atassi, John Mason, Robbie Simon, Leon Polk Smith; CODING: Karl Benjamin and Guy de Cointet; NARRATIVE: Jill Giegerich, Simphiwe Ndzube, Casey Kauffmann; MOVEMENT: Ashwini Bhat and Charles Christopher Hill; PATTERN: Alex Heilbron and Jim Isermann.