Document is pleased to present Serengeti Green, a selection of new works by San Francisco based artist Phillip Maisel. The exhibition opens on June 19th with a reception from 5pm to 8pm and will continue through July 18th.

Part of the allure of Phillip Maisel’s work is the challenge of deciphering exactly what you are looking at. He tips, stacks, slides, and tucks everyday materials––paper, glass, mirrors, tape, Plexiglas––into intriguing, multi-layered scenes staged for the camera’s lens, blurring the boundaries between sculpture, photography, and collage. Intuitively and meticulously constructed, these sculptural arrangements display a Bauhaus-inspired attention to balancing the elements of line, form, and color. They are, however, fleeting constructions, items positioned precariously against walls only to be dismantled once photographed.

Maisel often subtly reorients the same cast of objects through a series of images, playing with the variable effects of color, form, surface, reflectivity, opacity and translucence on these mise-en-scènes. As the same elements reappear in multiple works, they gain distinct visual traction with each altered formation. By photographing digitally, he can immediately review and evaluate each image. This process fundamentally informs the way materials are shifted and repositioned for subsequent photographs, which are ultimately presented as groupings or sequences.

-Allie Haeusslein, San Francisco, June 2015

Phillip Maisel (b. 1981, Chicago), lives and works in San Francisco. Maisel graduated from McGill University in Montreal with a BS in Psychology, and from California College of the Arts in San Francisco with an MFA in Visual Arts. He has exhibited at Right Window and Southern Exposure in San Francisco; The William Benton Museum in Connecticut; Heaven Gallery in Chicago; and DeCordova Museum in Massachusetts. Maisel has lectured at the San Francisco Art Institute and California College of the Arts, and currently teaches photography at The Nueva School in San Mateo, California. He has a concurrent solo exhibition at Gregory Lind Gallery in San Francisco.