Micah Lexier Names of Shapes Birch Contemporary November 4 – December 4, 2021 Names of Shapes is a series of wall-mounted, waterjet-cut, painted metal sculptures. Each sculpture consists of two elements: a line drawing of a geometric shape and the shape's name spelled out beside it. Each work is a tautology – an image of the thing beside the name of the thing. The series is inspired by educational diagrams made for teaching students about geometry. The walls of the gallery become the pages of a book and the experience of the installation is that of being inside a blown-up version of a kid’s school geometry workbook. Names of Shapes is as much a system as it is a body of work. There are 20 shapes in the series and there are a number of different projects that utilize these shapes. Not all the shapes are used in each project, and not every shape has been used. To date, the Names of Shapes imagery has been used to create this exhibition of eleven wall-mounted sculptures, a series of twenty-four unique inkjet-prints, a series of collaborative drawings made with Omar Lalani, a multiple made in a series of seven colours, and the Name of Shapes exhibition invitation which takes the form of four pads of paper. The exhibition is accompanied by texts written by David Bellingham, Dave Dyment and Derek McCormack.