FOON SHAM show closing: June 13, 2009

Foon Sham at Project 4: (Phone) Book Smart By Jessica Dawson
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, June 5, 2009
(Washington post online article link: here)

Artist Foon Sham works so subtly that we strain to detect even his most radical modifications. The Northern Virginia-based sculptor adheres to a narrow vocabulary of form, turning out objects that rework the urn, the totem, the helix and other, mostly natural forms.

Until now, Sham's go-to material has been wood -- chips and tiles of it, some prefabricated, others with their bark still attached -- that he stacks to form his structures. Sham still embraces his hardwoods, but a new material has entered the lexicon.

Though his 12 works on view at Project 4 replicate familiar forms -- towers and totems and stacked wall pieces -- fully half employ a radical new building block: the phone book.

Glenn Harper, editor of Sculpture Magazine, writes, "...it is clear that Sham's work always approaches the viewer with more than a discrete aesthetic experience. His work approaches you through multiple perceptions and cognitions, channeled through the artist's as well as the viewer's conceptual and palpable experience of the world...the smooth and rough, the laminated and carved, the singular and the stacked, the minimal and the multiple are all integral aspects of the work."


For additional information please contact:
Anne Surak, director

Project 4
1353 U Street NW, 3rd floor
Washington, DC 20009
202-232-4340
info[at]project4gallery.com
http://www.project4gallery.com/

Hours: Wednesday - Friday 2:00 - 6:00 pm, Saturday noon - 6:00 pm and by appointment.
(located at the intersection of 14th Street and U street NW)
Metro Access: Project 4 is easily accessible by metro. Project 4 is located one block west of the green line U St/African-American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo metro station, 13th Street exit.