Monthly archives: November, 2019

Exhibition News: Three Days to See Carolina Yrarrázaval’s Solo Exhibition in Chile

November 28, 2019 0 Comment
Carolina Yrarrázaval's solo exhibition in Chile photo by Patricia Novoa Cortez

Carolina Yrarrázaval’s solo exhibition, Capas de Recuerdos, at the Centro Cultural Las Condes, closes on December 1st. Yrarrázaval has a number of new works in the exhibition, which you can glimpse here.

The title translates as “Layer of Memories” which reflects the layers of the weave, the years of research work, the volumes of textures that feature in Carolina Yrarrázaval’s work. Yrarrázaval draws on different manifestations and cultures, from pre-Hispanic geometry to the subtlety and mystery of Japanese textiles. Her work features a formal and chromatic purity, achieved through the use of colors achieved through a personal dyeing process.

Carolina Yrarrázaval's Tapestries photo by Patricia Novoa Cortez


The exhibition include 20 tapestries woven in vertical loom, featuring folds, saddlebags and overlapping fabrics. The materials she uses are vegetable fibers – jute, hemp, linen, silk. The colors are deep and saturated, created through her personal dyeing process.

Carolina Yrarrázaval's Tapestry photo by Patricia Novoa Cortez


The Center is at Apoquindo 6570, Las Condes. For more information, visit: https://www.estoy.cl/teatro/capas-de-recuerdos/

Make a Day of It – Visit browngrotta arts and Other Art Venues This Weekend

November 9, 2019 0 Comment
Eva LeWitt, Untitled (Mesh A–J) (site-specific installation view, detail), 2019 Courtesy of the artist and VI, VII, Oslo. Photo: Jason Mandella

If you are coming to Artists from the Grotta Collection: a book launch and exhibition at browngrotta arts in Wilton, Connecticut this weekend, we suggest you take advantage of a few of the area’s other cultural offerings. Eva LeWitt (b. 1985) first one-person exhibition at the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield, just a few miles (literally)up the road from bga. The artist’s largest exhibition to date, debuts a significant, new site-specific installation commissioned by The Aldrich. Says the Museum, “LeWitt’s sculptural practice explores the visual interconnection of color, matter, shape, light, and gravity. Using materials she can control and manipulate with supporting and opposing attributes – rigid/pliable, opaque/transparent, airy/substantial, and handmade/machine built – LeWitt creates exuberant configurations that vaunt a buoyant physical agency. LeWitt’s deft sculptural arrays wondrously wed industrial materials like Plexiglas, acetate, latex, and vinyl with hand-cast and hand-dyed polyurethane foams, sponges and rubbers to form soft, sensuous, and splendidly vibrant compositions.” The artist’s first publication, with an essay by exhibition curator Amy Smith-Stewart is available http://aldrichart.org/article/eva-lewitt


On Saturday, 30+ highly-skilled artisans from across the country will be presenting their hand-crafted contemporary and traditional furnishings and wearables at the 34th American Artisan Show at the Wilton Historical Society (224 Danbury Road, Route 7). The Historical Society is also just down the road from bga — in the opposite direction. Furniture, folk art, pottery, fine leather goods, Nantucket-style baskets, candles, Windsor chairs, art, tavern signs, fine jewelry, photography, and much more – will be available for purchase at the Show. The show is fittingly set in the Society’s charming 18th and 19th century buildings. Artisan demos on Saturday. 10:00 – 5:00. Admission is $10; under 18 free. Wilton Historical Society: http://wiltonhistorical.org/events/american-artisan-show/

Grace Farms in New Canaan


Another option is a visit to Grace Farms in New Canaan (365 Luke’s Wood) which was established with the idea that space communicates and can inspire people to collaborate for good. To realize this vision, Grace Farms Foundation set out to create a multipurpose building nestled into the existing habitat that would enable visitors to experience nature, encounter the arts, pursue justice, foster community and explore faith. The architect SANAA’s goal was to make the River building become part of the landscape without drawing attention to itself. Under the continuous roof are five transparent glass-enclosed volumes that can host a variety of activities and events, while maintaining a constant sense of the surrounding environment. It sits on 80 acres, most of which are being preserved in perpetuity as open meadows, woods, wetlands and ponds. It’s open six days a week and free to the public. https://gracefarms.org/faq/

Hope to see you Saturday and Sunday or Sunday. You can visit Artists from the Grotta Collection at browngrotta arts, 276 Ridgefield Road, Wilton, Connecticut from 10 am to 5 pm either day. http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/calendar.php

Art Assembled — New this Week from October

November 7, 2019 0 Comment

As we kick off Novembers with our release of the Grotta Collection exhibition and book launch, which runs from November 3rd to November 10th, https://www.artsy.net/show/browngrotta-arts-artists-from-the-grotta-collection-exhibition-and-book-launch, we’d like to take a look back on which artist made October so special for us. 

Eduardo Portillo & Mariá Eugenia Dávila triple weave mosaic tapestry
Triple weave, Eduardo Portillo & Mariá Eugenia Dávila, silk, alpaca, moriche, metalliic yarns, copper, natural dyes, 71” x 48.25”, 2016

October starts the final quarter of the year, and it also brings in much excitement as the new year is nearing. With new beginnings, we began our New This Week feature in October with works from Eduardo Portillo and Mariá Eugenia Dávila. Their work is driven by their relationship with their surroundings and how their artwork can be communicated within a contemporary textile language. “ We have always been passionate about knowledge, experimentation and especially its reinterpretation within our own place and culture, in Mérida, in the Venezuelan Andes, we also work with local materials, such as cotton and alpaca from Peru and Bolivia, fiber from the moriche and chiqui-chique palm trees of the Orinoco River Delta and Amazon region, as well as dyes from the indigo plant. For us, color is crucial. Our interest in color starts at its very foundations: how it is obtained, where it is found in nature, in objects, in people. Through color, we discover the way to follow each project.” – Eduardo Portillo and Mariá Eugenia Dávila
For more on Eduardo Portillo & Mariá Eugenia Dávila visit Artist Link: http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/portillo.php

Mary Giles figurative wall dolls
Mary Giles, 11mg Annointed Rank, waxed linen, wire, bone, paint, gesso, 10”(h) x 31”, 1997

We are always intrigued by the wide variety of artwork that we have the pleasure of showcasing here at browngrotta arts. We strive not only to share the final products but also behind the scenes of the processes that go into creating the work on that ends up on our gallery walls. Our next October New This Week artist was Mary Giles, a St. Croix, Minnesota based fiber artist, and sculptor.

Over the past four decades, Giles helped move the boundaries of basket weaving and earned international recognition for her art, which is characterized by coiled waxed-linen bases adorned with hammered metal or fine wire that brings to mind tree bark, fish scales, feathers or fur.
“My baskets express both action and reaction to what I have loved in the past and what I am discovering today.” Mary Giles
For more on Mary Giles visit Artist Link: http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/giles.php

Willow boat basket sculpture
44cj Boat Becoming River, Christine Joy, willow 14” x 31” x 10”, 2018

Did you know that Weeping willow trees, which are native to northern China, are beautiful and fascinating trees whose lush, curved form is instantly recognizable? Did you also know that in addition to her basketmaking addiction, Christine Joy is also addicted to the smell of willow branches. In her studio, you will find willow branches that are piled high, and even when she doesn’t have time to make something, she takes a little visit into her very own willow heaven as much as she can. “Because it takes so long for one work of art, it has really become my own art therapy, which is ironic because that is what I got my degree in, to help others through art,” Joy said. “But now making these expressions is my. Willow is my life.” 
For more on Christine Joy visit Artist Link: http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/joy.php

Stéphanie Jacques installation
10sj Retournement en cours I, Stephanie Jacques, 36″ x 77″ x 14″, 2014-2016

One of the great joys we have is having the opportunity to share such fantastic work with incredible artists from all over the world. It is a pleasure sharing works from Stéphanie Jacques from Belgium in our new book The Grotta Home by Richard Meier: A Marriage of Architecture and Craft. Stéphanie Jacques once said, “Connecting things is the foundation of my work: hard and soft, old and new, valuable and trivial, conscious and unconscious, human and plant.”
For more on Stéphanie Jacques visit: http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/jacques.php