Recognized for his exploration of social patterns and systems, Greg Colson makes sculpture, paintings, and assemblage with equal attention to material and conceptual elements. Heliocentrism (Not to Scale) features absurdist models of our solar system that suggest conflicting notions of movement and gravity. In his sculptural reliefs, Colson depicts the sun and orbiting planets with found balls that were kicked and hit in their previous lives, while shelves supporting some of the objects negate any illusion of planetary motion. Other paintings have planets made with an array of mundane items—poker chips, coins, and clothing remnants—implying human exploration and occupation beyond Earth. Colson also approaches anxieties about A.I. and biases about the biomass of animal life in two new pie chart paintings, whose exaggerated icons and colors compromise the actual information.
These contradictions—dysfunctions, even—are the engine of Colson’s work. As poet and art critic John Yau recently wrote for Hyperallergic, Colson combines “a penchant for exactness with a sensitivity to detritus and waste. By being meticulous in his interaction with abandoned things, Colson infuses the act of care and attention with pathos.” Distilling the poetry and humor in our social patterns, Colson suggests there are limits to—and hazards inherent in—our obsession with efficiency and order.