Louise Eastman | Opening Moves

May 21 ‒ June 26, 2021

Planthouse is pleased to present Moves 1-28 by Louise Eastman, 28 monoprints printed at RussellJanis Studio, Brooklyn, NY. 

ARTIST STATEMENT

I have spent this past year working in a borrowed, abandoned red house next door. My time in lockdown became a residency. Before the pandemic, I’d begun to think about games of chance, dice, luck. With so much time to think, I started going over my history, memories from my grandfather’s porch of him playing backgammon with my brother. They could see the probability logic, calculate the rolls, trust the gambling. There are coveted rolls, double 6’s, accompanied by cheers. Double ones, snake eyes, and dice can symbolize bad luck but usually get a wahoo in backgammon. My favorite role is 3:1—that is the only obvious move that I know; all the following actions are predicated by the desire to move around the board, make points, try not to be exposed, and get knocked out. You attack any open checker, knock it out, block, block, and finally get as many checkers off the board, with the game continually being called for the apparent winner but never actually ending.

LOUISE EASTMAN is an artist living and working in Brooklyn and Sag Harbor, NY. She focuses on weaving and ceramics. Eastman received her MFA from Pratt Institute, NY, and has recently shown at Silas Marder Gallery, Planthouse Gallery, and Russell Janis Gallery. She’s a member of the Victory Garden Collective, founded in 2016. Previously, she received a MacDowell Colony Fellowship.