In his new body of work, David Gilbert has been fashioning castles out of paper. He photographs these drawn and cut forms as they curl off the walls of his studio, dappled in the first rays of morning light or bathed in the glow of the evening.

The chateaux Gilbert chooses as subjects have a flavor of childhood, as if lifted from a fairytale. While the imagery draws on a sense of picture-book wonder, the castle as icon symbolizes power and dominance, staking a claim on land and over people. Gilbert’s rendering of these fortresses in drooping paper and scrappy cardboard defangs their power; stone heft and weight are made gossamer, the structures light with blowy impermanence.

Gilbert’s use of photography furthers this transient quality. Photography inherently captures a brief moment in time, and Gilbert’s images emphasize their temporality by tracking the passing arc of daylight over his paper world. These castles can be quickly rolled up – like background sets of a puppet theatre. Gendered performance is implied in this theatricality, with supporting roles played by giant blooming lilies, partial sketches of hairy chests, and lushly creeping vines of ivy, threatening to subsume the whole scene.

Paper itself is a subject here, and there are many kinds of paper in Gilbert’s studio, used variously as sculptural material, draping, wallpaper, and drawing surface. They all come together to construct his ad-hoc scenes. There is also the photo paper of the prints themselves, at times pinned simply to the wall, a nod to the way paper hangs in the studio.

More paper: This show coincides with the publication of Lilies, Gilbert’s first comprehensive monograph published in 2026 by Zolo Press. Copies of Lilies are available at the gallery, and a book launch event and conversation with Wayne Koestenbaum, which will be hosted by Mast Books on Thursday, May 21 at 6PM.