• Installation view with Yo-Yo 2, 2015, on right

  • Installation view with text installation Yo-Yo 9, 2015 (left), the painting Yo-Yo 3, 2015 (right) and Yo-Yo 1, 2015, featuring ink on paper (far back)

  • Installation view with Yo-Yo 5, 2015, on left and, through the doors, Yo-Yo 3, 2015
Some artists mesmerize with a few quick strokes of the wrists; others, like L.A.-based Matt Connolly, make the labor-intensive production behind their works a focal feature. Catch Connolly’s latest show at Stems Gallery in Brussels, Yo-Yo, before it closes on the 19th to see what we mean. One series includes aluminum canvases on which he’s applied up to 20 coats of paint, in different colors, and then painstakingly sanded the surface to create a pattern. In another, Connolly recreates, in grand scale, artist Anni Albers’ textile works with mark after mark after mark… made with a fine pen. You can see these works up close in the slideshow above and here.

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