Tag: Paper Art

art on paper preview: Helena Hernmarck collages

Helena Hernmarck Collages, from her stamp and Documents Series

Helena Hernmarck Collages, from her Stamp and Documents Series. photo by Tom Grotta

The art on paper fair opens next Wednesday at Pier 36 in New York City.  At browngrotta arts,  Booth 123, we’ll be featuring collages by Helena Hernmarck that meld ink watercolor wash, photocopy and rubber-stamp. Hernmarck creates the collages as studies for potential tapestries, for which she is known in the US and abroad, but like the tapestries, the delicately color-washed collages succeed on their own terms. Stamp

7hh Stamp Series 1, Helena Hernmarck, collage: photocopy; watercolor and rubber stamps on paper; white lacquered wood, 15.75" x 13.25”, 1984

7hh Stamp Series 1, Helena Hernmarck, collage: photocopy; watercolor and rubber stamps on paper; white lacquered wood, 15.75″ x 13.25”, 1984 Photo by Tom Grotta

Series 1, for example, was completed in 1985 as a tapestry  and is in the collection of the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. Certified Mail, was also woven in 1985. This work is in the permanent collection the Röhss Museum of Design and Decorative Arts, Gothenburg, Sweden. The hours of the exhibition are Friday, March 4th and  Saturday, March 5th, 11 – 7 p.m.; Sunday, March 6th, 12 – 6 p.m. There is a Preview, benefiting the Brooklyn Museum, Thursday, March 3rd, from 6 – 10 p.m. For ticket and other information visit: http://thepaperfair.com/ny/for-visitors/fair-dates-hours-location/.

13hh STAMP SERIES 3, Helena Hernmarck, collage: photocopy, watercolor and rubber stamps on paper, 15.75" x 13.25" x 1.5", white lacquered wood frame with den glass, 1984. Photo by Tom Grotta

13hh STAMP SERIES 3, Helena Hernmarck, collage: photocopy, watercolor and rubber stamps on paper, 15.75″ x 13.25″ x 1.5″, white lacquered wood frame with den glass, 1984. Photo by Tom Grotta


Process Notes: On Paper and Pages – Wendy Wahl

Wendy Wahl talking about her works after her talk at the Flinn Gallery

Last month, Wendy Wahl spoke to a group at the Flinn Gallery in Greenwich, Connecticut at  the Paperworks: material as medium exhibtion about her recent works and installations made of re-purposed encyclopedias. Here are some excerpts from Wahl’s remarks:

REBOUND: FROM E/H Wendy Wahl discarded/deconstructed/ restructured encylopedia pages , blackened old elm barn beam 27″ x 27″ x 13″, 2009

“My daily walk in the woods allows me the quiet opportunity to hear the sounds of the trees, to see a segment of something larger and profound. Those walks provided the time and space I needed to figure out what the next series of pieces were going to be. It became apparent to me that the materials I needed to use should be familiar and abundant. In 2006, I participated in a group show titled Not Quite Natural, this was the first time I used the pages or leaves of books as a material to create an object. The exhibition was at the Wheeler School Gallery, an ideal setting to present art that is inspired by the concept of how we learn. “Stand for Knowledge” is constructed from pages of discarded New American Encyclopedias whose text I blackened with India ink. Each form stands on a base made from a recycled 200-year-old elm barn beam that has been blackened.”

9ww #502, Wendy Wahl, seven pieces, paper, yarn,95″ x 60″ x 36″, 2001-2002, photo by Tom Grotta

“Originally, I was most interested in the process. I didn’t necessarily need to know what the outcomes would look like only that I had to do it and I wanted to work the material in three dimensions. Sometimes, it is in the act of making the parts where the inspiration resides; knowing there is a mystery of what is about to unfold. Earlier pieces were suspended by monofilament, just kissing the platform, swaying ever so slightly.“

Wendy Wahl works on her installation “Uncovered Grove” at Newport Art Museum. The show will run through February 3, 2008. (photo by Jacqueline Marque)

“In 2007, Curator Nancy Grinnell invited me to have an exhibition at the Newport Art Museum. I created Uncovered Grove. I was seduced by the idea of making a body of work that considered the association between the tree of life and the tree of knowledge. The intention was to describe the relationship of our natural and cultural realms in an attempt to understand the sources and structures that bind us together. I am a fan of Pablo Neruda’s poetry and in his last book of Questions he asks, “What did the tree learn from the earth to be able to talk to the sky? And Why did the tree undress itself only to wait for the snow?”

“A journal entry from Ralph Waldo Emerson dated November 2, 1833 clearly says the unsayable: “Nature is a language, and every new fact that we learn is a new word; but rightly seen, taken all together, it is not merely a language, but the language put together into a most significant and universal book. I wish to learn the language, not that I may learn a new set of nouns and verbs, but that I may read the great book which is written in that tongue.”

8ww #77 Wendy Wahl paper, 29″ x 40″ x 15″, 2001-2002, photo by Tom Grotta

“In 2009, Tom Grotta called me up and said, the installation work is very nice, but do you think you cam make something to hang on a wall in a room rather than something that requires the whole room to hold the piece. And with that nudge I embarked on making a series of pieces on panel with frames using encyclopedias and dictionaries. “

25ww REBOUND DIPTYCH Wendy Wahl, Encylodpedia Britanica mixed editions, 2; 28″ x 18″ panels, 2010, photo by Tom Grotta

“They are somewhere between sculpture, collage and paintings. I see them as landscapes. They are constructed from hundreds and hundreds of scrolled pages glued to the surface of a wood panel.”

26ww Seeds(of knowledge) WB vol.18/19, Wendy Wahl, World Book encyclopedia pages on inked panel, 21.25″€ x 34.25″€ x 1.625″€, 2011, photo by Tom Grotta

“When WS Merwin was US poet laureate, I was inspired by his poem Unchopping a Tree and would recite it aloud prior to working on these 4’x4’ panels. It begins: Start with the leaves, the small twigs and the nests that have been shaken, ripped or broken off by the fall; these must be gathered and attached once again to their respective places, And ends: But there is nothing more you can do. Others are waiting. Everything is going to have to be put back.”

Branches Unbound Wendy Wahl’s installation at the Grand Rapids Art Museum

“I am still compelled to make large scale installations and last year I erected Branches Unboundat the Grand Rapids Art Museum. It is another iteration of my view of the connections between nature and culture. My continued interest is considering the associations between the tree of life, defined as the patterns of relationships that link all earth’s species and the tree of knowledge, defined as the connected branches of human thought realized in the form of writing and speaking.”

“This work is part of an ongoing experiment and series that uses the potency of printed text. I’m using a cultural artifact as my material for many of reasons that include the meanings that it carries, its unique physical qualities, and to recognize its symbolic status. By restructuring familiar elements that in a particular format belongs to a collective consciousness, I’m commenting on an aspect of our station in time.”

Wendy Wahl discussing her works at Paperworks: Material as Medium at the Flinn Gallery photo by Tom Grotta, courtesy of browngrotta arts

“I am often asked why paper? I began using paper as more than a substrate because of its beauty and mystery. It can be permanent or transient, delicate or strong, cheap or expensive, abundant or scarce. It can be cut, bent, folded, crumpled, twisted, torn, glazed, waxed, pulped or burned. Paper can go from two to three dimensions in unexpected ways. It can be preserved or returned to the earth. It is probably one of the most important technological developments that affected the course of human history.”


Exhibition News: Paperworks: material as medium opens in Greenwich on May 10th

UNTITLED, Naomi Kobayashi, kayori thread, paper, 99″ x 54″ x 5″, 2006, photo by Tom Grotta, courtesy of browngrotta arts

Paper holds a powerful place in the history of human interaction, marking our milestones with birth certificates, marriage licenses and diplomas, maintaining our collective Paperworks: material as medium at the Flinn Gallery at the Greenwich Public Library, Greenwich, Connecticut from May 10th through June 21st, curated by Kelly Eberly and Barbara Richards and browngrotta arts, celebrates paper in another guise – as a medium for art.

The work of more than 30 international artists inspired by and created from paper is featured in Paperworks. In them, paper has been stitched and plaited, carved and stacked, used as pulp to be molded and reformed, while newspapers, telephone books and dress patterns have been repurposed as vessels and sculpture. The  artists in Paperworks treat varieties of paper their material as others would wood, linen, clay or marble.

OVER EASY, Dona Anderson, paper armature covered with pattern paper as surface design. Frame (cover) is rounds reeds strengthened with pattern paper, polymer and black paint 10″ x 14″ x 14″ , 2011. photo by Tom Grotta, courtesy of browngrotta arts

Several of the artists in Paperworks create structures of recycled papers. Wendy Wahl of the US uses pages of old encyclopedias to create an arbor of arches while Kazue Honma of Japan creates vessels from Japanese telephone books and Japanese artist Toshio Sekiji weaves wallworks newspapers from around the world. The exhibition includes constructions by the late US artist Ed Rossbach made of cardboard and newpaper and vessels made of dress pattern paper by US artist Dona Anderson.

34ts COUNTERPOINT 8, Toshio Sekiji, Korean newspapers; black urushi lacquer 28″ x 25″ x 4″, 2009, photo by Tom Grotta, courtesy of browngrotta arts

For Jane Balsgaard of Denmark, Naomi Kobayashi of Japan and Pat Campbell and Mary Merkel-Hess of the US, handmade and gampi paper create semi-translucent, ethereal objects that seem capable of floating. In Balsgaard’s case, the paper she uses is made from materials gathered near her summer home in Sweden. Mary Merkel-Hess uses gampi paper, papier-maiche and reed to create baskets, softly lit sculptures and wall works. Other artists, including Sylvia Seventy from the US, use molded paper pulp to create art, including in Seventy’s case, molded paper bowls populated with found and other objects.

brazilian palm, banana leaves, morbærbark paper, 11″ x 24″ x 9.5″, 2010, photo by Tom Grotta, courtesy of browngrotta arts

In conjunction with Paperworks: material as medium there will be a Curator’s Walkthrough on May 12th at 2 p.m. and an Artist’s Talk by artist Wendy Wahl on June 10th at 2 p.m. The Flinn Gallery is in the Greenwich Library, 101 West Putnam Avenue, Greenwich, CT 06830. An opening reception will be held May 10th from 6-8. For more information call: 203.622.7947.