White Compositions

The White Compositions are symbolically charged with highly specific references that speak to Ames’s work and life as an architect in Georgia preoccupied with modernism, art and basketball, among other cultural and literary meanings. Ames playfully collages architectural elements, such as facades organised by grids, with everyday (yet highly specific) objects—like a Morandi-esque vase, a Corbusian pair of glasses, a can of coke, an electric guitar, or a basketball hoop. The contrast between the (supposedly) rational, objective, and universalising characteristics of modernism in confrontation with the particular, the idiosyncratic, and the autobiographical quotidian communicates a uniquely Ames-ian sensibility that provides a distinctive and refreshing take on the 20th-century architectural movement.

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Anthony Ames has operated his eponymous architecture office since 1976 and began painting in 1984. Ames’ White Compositions—a series of 11 monochromatic relief wall sculptures—originate from and elaborate on the architect’s painting practice, closely attending to proportion, layout, recurring forms, and motifs found within both his artistic and built works. His paintings—as described by Courtney Coffman in her previous review of Ames’s solo exhibition at a83 gallery in New York—“oscillate somewhere between the formality of a still life, the dynamism of sculptural relief, and the juxtaposed delight of collage.” A natural evolution in Ames’s practice, the 11 wall sculptures are accompanied by documents that provide insight into the precise and accomplished nature of Ames’ design process: from buildings to art.

Anthony Ames has maintained an architectural practice in Atlanta, Georgia since 1976. He received architectural degrees from Georgia Tech and Harvard University. He has taught at eleven universities and lectured at many more. Ames, a fellow at the American Academy in Rome and of the American Institute of Architects has received numerous architectural awards and has been widely published. See: Ames, Five Houses, (Princeton Architectural Press, 1987); Ames, Residential Work: Volume 2, (Oro Editions, 2007); and Ames, Fifty Paintings, (Oro Editions, 2021). He began painting in 1984 and has been struggling with it ever since.