Andrea Gaydos Landau explores the strange domain of the double negative this June at Tiger Strikes Asteroid with her solo show “Never Wanted Nothing.” By utilizing collage comprised primarily of negative space cutouts mixed with dark and starkly contrasted structures that flood out across the pristine walls, Landau presents compositions that feed on the give and take between positive and negative; something and nothing.

Andrea Gaydos Landau, “Intersection of Two Spheres.” Image courtesy of the artist

In much of the exhibit, Landau presents square collage works, which she pieces together with the shadows or open spaces sliced from other images. By harnessing the ‘blank’ or ‘negative’ sections from other visual works, the artist effectively creates ‘something’ from ‘nothing.’

The name of the show also adds a semantic slant to the works. Landau grabs hold of the colloquial tendency to speak in improper (yet strangely pervasive) double negatives. By saying someone ‘doesn’t want nothing,’ they are technically – but not actually – saying that they do, in fact, want something. Occasionally people realize this verbal misstep, but accept the slang version as par for the course.

Andrea Gaydos Landau, “Still Life.” Image courtesy of the artist

Landau tackles this common mistake by noting its potential depth in both speech and in visual art instead of focusing on its wrongness. If she “Never Wanted Nothing,” does she sometimes want something? Does she always want everything? The ambiguity extends far beyond merely being indefinite, however. When the negations are multiplied in such a statement, thoughts and actions can become drastically more complicated and imprecise, leading down a rabbit hole that would send all but the most adept logicians reeling.

These meandering trains of thought can be seen in her collage work, which seems to note that all such implications are merely relative, be they visual or linguistic tropes. Tying the language of words to the language of images, the artist also expertly connects two forms of expression that are often perceived as wholly independent.

Andrea Gaydos Landau, “Promise.”

The most impressive of the works here are actually the antitheses of these notions. They manifest in complex black structures that fan out into the whiteness of the gallery. In this way, these pieces seem to leave no question as to what is the positive or the negative… but paired with these other works, we find ourselves questioning them anyway. After all, each individual shape is merely an outline of empty space.

A circle built of wiry rectangles breaks apart and drifts into the ether of the room, seemingly dissolving or dispersing outward in Landau’s “Promise.” It reminds us that even the most steadfast of boundaries is not necessarily immutable and everything in the universe is subject to change. While these bits of dark matter were clearly made as the focus of our attention – and an intricate and evocative one at that – in the scheme of things, they are ultimately indistinguishable from their surroundings except by our definitions. To any other animal, they would scarcely warrant a second look.

Landau will be showing “Never Wanted Nothing” at Tiger Strikes Asteroid through June 29.

Tiger Strikes Asteroid is located at 319 North 11th St., on the second floor, Philadelphia; [email protected]; tigerstrikesasteroid.com.