Mutual Immanence, Churner and Churner, New York, 2014
Kite, 2013
Acrylic paint, oil paint, paper, archival glue, nails, and wood
23 1/2 x 30 3/4 inches
For A.S., 2014
Acrylic, oil, paper, pva glue, nails, and wood
54 1/2 x 36 1/2 inches
Painting for Bunny, 2014
Oil acrylic, and latex, aluminum foil, and graphite on wood
5 ½ x 6 ½ inches
Painting for S.B., 2014
Oil acrylic and paper on wood
13 x 31 inches
Presented at Churner and Churner Gallery in New York City, this body of work features dedicational paintings ranging from 4 feet to 2 inches—some small enough to fit in the palm of one's hand—that reconstitute fragments of material, line, and shape torn from their original sources. Made from salvaged Lauan plywood previously used in Raskin's Jack Shack installation (PS1/MoMA, 2007), the paintings bear cuts whose formal language makes violence evident, where fragments sutured together with construction-paper "bandages" reference repair and care. The work deepened during a 2013 trip to Afghanistan, made possible through a Creative Time Global Residency Grant, where Raskin visited the museum of the Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghan Rehabilitation in Kabul, the ruins of Darul Aman Palace, and Herat's Jihad Museum, collecting over 45,000 photographs that inform the paintings somatically. The practice explores beautiful relationships where the whole exists but the parts remain visible, employing strategic ineptitude to expose ignorance and doubt, using failure to undo the notion of static empirical truth, and refusing a process that assembles into stable images.