Art Review: Cristóbal Lehyt's "Iris Sheets"

Cristóbal Lehyt made his first foray into site-specific sculpture in the exhibition "Iris Sheets" at the Americas Society. For this show, the artist, born in Chile in 1973, built a massive, untitled structure out of sweetgum and oak logs, which had been soaked in Chilean red wine. The burgundy-stained segments of tree were bolted together in a series of interconnected triangular modules that spanned the length of the main gallery. Bifurcating the space, the sculpture forced the viewer to negotiate its form in order to get to the alcove at the back, where two more works from 2013 were on view. Aquarium consists of two small sealed glass boxes filled with sand, wine and sulphur. Iris Sheets, part of his ongoing "Drama Projections" series, is a black-light-enhanced fluorescent wall mural, featuring five genderless, contour figures in a black expanse punctuated by neon orbs and flecks of paint.

Concurrent with the Americas Society show was "Iris Sheets II: This Time It's Personal" at Johannes Vogt. Here, Lehyt showed seven large paintings (all 2013) on unstretched polyester, each depicting one figure. Like the wall mural, several of the paintings were made by creating a polychromatic ground and overlaying it with a matte-black surface. Lehyt then drew his figures by scratching into the black to reveal the neon and primary acrylic colors. One such work at Vogt presents the outline of a body with its arms held slightly out to the sides; its eyes, mere dots, are set in a bald, misshapen head and seem to stare blankly forward....

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