Category: Exhibitions

Make a Day of It – Field Notes and Nearby Exhibitions

April 23, 2025 0 Comment

There is an abundance of art to see on your trip to or from Field Notes: an art survey at browngrotta arts in Wilton, Connecticut next month (May 3 – 11). 

Tracey Emin
A Moment Without You – Tracey Emin

Coming from the east? The first major presentation of Tracey Emin’s work in a North American museum is currently at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut. The exhibition, Tracey Emin: I Loved you Until Morning, features paintings from 2007 to the present. Together, the works demonstrate the artist’s unflinching commitment to challenging conceptions of female experience.

Maren Hassinger
Maren Hassinger, Monument (Pyramid), 2022. Wood and metal. Yale University Art Gallery, Janet and Simeon Braguin Fund. © Maren Hassinger

While you are in New Haven, you can also see a 10-foot-tall pyramid made of hundreds of thin tree branches that has been installed in the Yale Art Gallery’s Margaret and Angus Wurtele Sculpture Garden, Monument (Pyramid), a 2022 work by the prominent contemporary sculptor Maren Hassinger.

Isamu Noguchi
Isamu Noguchi sculpture, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem Collection; Photo copyright by yair taller.

Coming from New York or other parts west? The Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut is hosting a very interesting exhibition of sculptures by Isamu Noguchi. Isamu Noguchi: Metal the Mirror, features a selection of nine galvanized steel sculptures, the exhibition is organized into thematic groupings that showcase the artist’s mastery of material, form, and texture. In the first, Noguchi imparts inanimate forms with human qualities, complicating the relationship between flesh and steel, body and mirror. Man-made material is transformed into representations of mountains, fruit, and sky in the second grouping, reflecting Noguchi’s belief that, in modernity, industry and nature are intertwined. A final trio of works reveals Noguchi’s ongoing interest in abstraction, bringing theoretical and spiritual ideas, weight and weightlessness, and past and present into visual conversation.

Silvermine Gallery
Roger Mudre, Executive Director, Silvermine Galleries, and Rhonda Brown of browngrotta arts at the Galleries in February. On exhibit then: New Members 2025. On exhibit in May: Fiber 2025, Masters of the Medium: CT and Mastery and Materiality: International. Photo by Tom Grotta. 

Coming to Wilton on May 10th? You can visit Field Notes and three other textile art exhibitions at the Silvermine Art Gallery in New Canaan, CT.  Fiber 2025 has been juried by Tom Grotta and Rhonda Brown of browngrotta arts. An international exhibition, it seeks to showcase the best of contemporary fiber art, reflecting the breadth of functional or non-functional works that use fiber and/or fiber art techniques in traditional or innovative ways. In conjunction with Fiber 2025, are two exhibitions curated by browngrotta arts in the Silvermine Galleries: Masters of the Medium, CT, highlighting the work of acclaimed Connecticut artists Helena Hernmarck and Norma Minkowitz, and Mastery and Materiality: International, featuring work by 17 artists from nine countries, including renowned Jacquard weavers, accomplished embroiderers, and fiber sculptors who work in seaweed, bark, wire, paper straws, lead, and fish scales.

Glass House
The Glass House

Coming to Field Notes another day during its 10-day run? You can see art in the neighborhood in New Canaan or Ridgefield. Barbara Kasten: Structure, Light, Land is at The Glass House in New Canaan — 8.4 miles away. For five decades, Chicago-based artist Barbara Kasten has created photographs and sculptural installations that reorient our sense of perception and explore the dynamic relationship between space, material, and form. Structure, Light, Land features Kasten’s work from multiple series, including Architectural Sites, Collisions, and Progressions, as well as new iterations of digital projections, cyanotypes, and sculptures. With a striking interplay of light, color, and form, Kasten’s work infiltrates the grounds of The Glass House and responds to the site’s varied built environment and landscape. 

A Garden of Promise and Dissent
A Garden of Promise and Dissent (installation view), The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, November 17, 2024 to April 12, 2026. Photo: Jeffrey Jenkins Projects

Or, visit A Garden of Promise and Dissent at the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, just 6.2 miles from browngrotta arts. The exhibition spans the grounds, featuring works by eight multigenerational artists who explore future gardens as embodiments of imagination and rebellion.  
Looking forward to seeing you in May! 

Exhibition Details:

Field Notes: an art survey
browngrotta arts
276 Ridgefield Rd
Wilton, CT 06897
May 3 – 11, 2025
Saturday, May 3rd: 11am to 6pm 
Sunday, May 4th: 11am to 6pm 
Monday, May 5th through Saturday, May 10th: 10am to 5pm 
Sunday, May 11th: 11am to 6pmSafety protocols:
Reservations strongly encouraged.
No narrow heels please (barn floors)
https://browngrotta.com/exhibitions/field-notes

Fiber 2025
(juried by browngrotta arts)
Masters of the Medium: CT
Mastery and Materiality: International
(curated by browngrotta arts)
May 10 – June 19, 2025
Silvermine Galleries
1037 Silvermine Road
New Canaan, CT
Closed Sunday + Monday
https://browngrotta.com/events/events

Tracey Emin: I Loved You Until Morning
Through August 10, 2025
The Yale Center for British Art
1080 Chapel Street
New Haven, Connecticut 06510
Closed Monday
https://britishart.yale.edu/exhibitions-programs/tracey-emin-i-loved-you-until-morning

Isamu Noguchi: Metal the Mirror
Through November 16, 2025
The Bruce Museum
1 Museum Drive
Greenwich, CT 06830-7157
Closed Monday
https://brucemuseum.org/whats-on/isamu-noguchi-metal-the-mirror

Barbara Kasten: Structure, Light, Land
Through December 15, 2025
The Glass House Visitor Center + Design Store             
199 Elm Street, New Canaan, CT 06840                     
Closed Tuesday + Wednesday
https://theglasshouse.org/pressrelease/barbara-kasten-structure-light-land-april-17-december-15-2025/

A Garden of Promise and Dissent
Through December 17, 2025
The Aldrich
258 Main Street
Ridgefield, CT 06877
Closed Tuesday 
https://thealdrich.org/exhibitions/a-garden-of-promise-and-dissent-outdoor-installation

Field Notes: Pioneers

April 16, 2025 0 Comment

For our Spring 2025 Art in the Barn Exhibition, Field Notes: an art survey, we’ve taken an expansive look at the fiber art field. We’ve checked in with artists we work with and invited a group of artists new to browngrottarts. In addition, we’ve gathered selected works by five pioneering artists — Sheila Hicks, Masakazu Kobayashi, Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, Ed Rossbach and Kay Sekimachi. 

Some 60 years ago, artists begn making works that transcended our existing concept of textiles. While based on traditional techniques, these works, collectively known as fiber art, incorporated metals, minerals, and many other materials in addition to natural and synthetic fibers. For the first time, textiles came off the wall, expanded from two to three dimensions and into the surrounding space. The five artists we will include in Field Works, were not just pivotal in the emergence of contemporary fiber art in the  60s and 70s, but significant contributors to the art form’s current popularity. 

Masakazu Kobayashi
39mko Bow ‘86, Masakazu Kobayashi, silk, rayon, aluminum, wood thread spools, 2.25” x 20” x 20”, 1986

Kobayashi’s work was the subject of a major retropsective at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan in 2024 and Hicks’s work was, most recently, featured in a major exhibition in two German museums, Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop and the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, earlier this year. Rousseau-Vermette’s work will be the subject of major retrospective at the Musée National des Beaux Arts du Québec (MNBAQ)  in Canada in 2026. And, you can see works by Hicks, Rosshbach, and Sekimachi in Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction at the Museum of Modern Art in New York beginning next week and work by all five in Field Notes: an art survey, at browngrotta arts in Wilton, CT, May 3rd through the 11th.

Sheila Hicks
Detail: 40sh Family Evolution, Sheila Hicks, 9” x 25” x 9”, 1997

Renowned fiber sculptor Sheila Hicks began creating innovative textile works in the 1950s. She studied painting with Josef Albers at Yale, and studied weaving in Mexico and Chile. Ball-like forms and “boules” are a motif to which Hicks repeatedly returns. The core of these forms, as in the case of Family Evolution, featured in Field Notes is often formed from garments that have previously belonged to the artist’s friends or family. They hold memories for Hicks, who refers to them as her memory balls. The personal aspect is intentional. 

Masakazu Kobayashi, (1944-2004) was an early actor in contemporary fiber art.  He first studied lacquerware at Kyoto City University of Fine Arts (later Kyoto City University of Arts) but, according to the Kyoto Musuem of Modern Art,  “it was “Encounter with a Single Thread,” which he made while working at Kawashima Textiles Company, that spearheaded a series of works in which he dangled, stretched and unravelled yarn to create three-dimensional pieces.”  Bow ’86 is featured in Field Notes. Made of silk, rayon, aluminum, and wooden thread spools, the work continues the artist’s exploration of the bow — a shape he created by bending aluminum bow space wilth tension held  with silken thread. The bow explorations embody the equilibrium he sought in his work between his capacity as a creator and the energy of the world around him.

Mariette Rousseau-Vermette
Field Note: 171mr Reflets de Montréal, Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, wool, 42″ x 82″ x 2.5″, 1968

Born in Trois-Pistoles, Québec, Mariette Rousseau-Vermette (1926 – 2006) received her training at both the École des beaux-arts du Québec and at the Oakland College of Arts and Crafts, in California where she worked in Dorothy Liebes’s studio in San Francisco. She married Claude Vermette in 1952. The couple travelled extensively in Europe and Asia, allowing Rousseau-Vermette to broaden and deepen her understanding of different tapestry techniques. For four decades, she created luminous tapestries and sculptures for collectors and commissions throughout Canada and the US, including for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Chancery, Exxon Corporation and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC (a curtain gifted by the Canadian Government). Reflets de Montréal, included in Field Notes, is a sumptuous early work from 1968 made of wool that Rousseau-Vermette sourced for its lustrous qualities. 

All three of these artists, Hicks, Kobayashi, and Rousseau-Vermette, exhibited works at several of the prestigious International Tapestry Biennials in Lausanne, Switzerland which were organized from 1962 to 1995.

Ed Rossbach
Ed Rossbach 45.1r Poncho, 8″ x 7.75″ x 7.75″, 1991; 8r.1 Punt,, 14″ x 5″ x 5″, 1989; 20.1r Wyoming, 8″ x 11″ x 11″, 1996, plaited ash veneer, rice paper, heat transfer

Ed Rossbach and Kay Sekimachi were both living in Berkeley, California in the 60s and 70s, which was an incubator for contemporary fiber arts. As a faculty member at the University of California, Ed Rossbach (1914 – 2002) was a major force spurring these explorations. The Museum of Arts and Design in New York, New York described Ed Rossbach’s importance: “Rossbach was an imaginative and adept weaver, mastering ancient techniques and innovating with new and unorthodox materials, such as plastics and newspaper. He is considered by many to be the pre-eminent influence in the rise of basketry as a sculptural art form. In addition, Rossbach is known for incorporating unconventional imagery, including pop culture references.” Numerous artists from Diedrick Brackins to Marvin Lipofsky to Gyöngy Laky claim him as an influence. In Field Notes, Punt, one of Rossbach’s pop culture-inspired works will be exhibited. A resale work, Punt features a football kicker in bright colors. The other works included, Poncho and  Wyoming, also feature intriguing — South American textile patterning and an image of gravel from the West.

Kay Sekimachi
127,136,137,170k Summer session with Trude Guermonprez, Kay Sekimachi, Variation of honeycomb weave, 8 harness, group threading, cotton, linen, 14.5″ x 9″, 1950’s

Kay Sekimachi is recognized as a leader in the resurrection of fiber and weaving as a legitimate means of artistic expression. She is known as a “weaver’s weaver” for her unusual use of a 16-harness loom in constructing three-dimensional sculptural pieces. In the early 1970s she used nylon monofilament to create hanging quadruple tubular woven forms in an exploration of space, transparency, and movement. She attended the California College of Arts and Crafts (CA), where she studied with Trude Guermonprez, and at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (ME), where she studied with Jack Lenor Larsen. In Field Notes, very significant early works that Sekimachi made in the 1950s while studying with Trude Guermonprez, Samples: Summer Session with Trude Guermonprez, will be on view. Sekimachi credits Guermonprez with empowering her through her style of teaching, which emphasized individual creativity and curiosity. 

As Aby Mackie, another artist in Field Notes, observes: “The field of fiber art is currently experiencing a profound shift, gaining recognition as a respected medium within contemporary art. This growing appreciation affirms textiles’ versatility and expressive potential, establishing it as a powerful medium for storytelling and innovation in the current art world.”

Join us May to explore that potential!
SCHEDULE YOUR VISIT 

Exhibition Details:
Field Notes: an art survey
browngrotta arts
276 Ridgefield Rd
Wilton, CT 06897
May 3 – 11, 2025

Gallery Dates/Hours:
Saturday, May 3rd: 11am to 6pm [Opening & Artist Reception]
Sunday, May 4th: 11am to 6pm (40 visitors/ hour)
Monday, May 5th through Saturday, May 10th: 10am to 5pm (40 visitors/ hour)
Sunday, May 11th: 11am to 6pm [Final Day] (40 visitors/ hour)

Safety protocols: 
Reservations strongly encouraged.
No narrow heels please (barn floors)

Field Notes: Who’s New? Sculptures and Vessels

April 9, 2025 0 Comment

browngrotta arts’ Spring 2025 “Art in the Barn,” exhibition. Field Notes: an art survey, opens on May 3rd and runs through May 11th. In Field Notes, browngrotta arts reports on the state of play in fiber art, as the medium crests in popularity, with significant exhibitions in the US and abroad. We survey artists we work with regularly, artists who’ve caught our eye, and gather select pieces by artists who introduced the innovative approach to textiles that’s become contemporary fiber art. 

We’ll present the work of six artists, new to browngrotta arts, in Field Notes. Three of them, Yong Joo Kim of Korea and the US, Masako Nakahira of Japan, and Sophie Rowley who resides in Germany, create works for the wall. We’ll tell you more about them and their work in an upcoming arttextsyle post. 

Three of the artists we have invited to Field Notes, Sung Rim Park of Korea, Ane Lyngsgaard of Denmark, and Jennifer Zurick of the US create vessels and fiber sculptures. Here’s a sneak peak at works we’ll feature and into these artists’ thoughts about what and how they produce.

Sung Rim Park floor Sculpture
Beyond 220723, 180623, Sung Rim Park, hanji (Korean paper) 46″ x 36″ x 4″; 36″ x 36″ x 4″, 2023. Photo by Tom Grotta

Sung Rim Park’s ethereal fiber sculptures of thread and hanji paper explore repetition. Her work employs repeated knots, which in multiples, permit three-dimensional construction. The tightly tied knots, and the threads connected to them, are built up to form a spatial matrix. “Fiber is the most appropriate material for my artwork,” Park says, “because of its multidimensional perspective, physical characteristics, psychological stability, cultural nostalgia, and its ability to capture both sight and touch.” Park majored in costume and textile design in Korea and the UK. Her sculptures reference her interest in contemplation and healing. Starry nights are an influence. “[N]ature is a place of relaxation and a source of adoration for me, and this is the reason I chose this as a theme for my artwork.” 

Ane Lyngsgaard basket
Organic Basket, Ane Lyngsgaard, willow, willowbark, fiberconcretek, 31.5” x 19.5” x 19.5”, 2024. Photo by Tom Grotta

From Denmark, Ane Lyngsgaard  has taught in Europe, Canada, the US, and Africa for 20 years. She has achieved international recognition for her innovative basket works. The TearUp Festival in the UK described Lyngsgaard as “a bonafide genius with the widest range of materials.” Her sculptural vessels are made with a mix of bark, driftwood, recylced fiber concrete, wire, and willow which she grows and harvests herself. “Initially, it was the willow that captivated me,” she writes, “followed by other organic materials, and now it is whatever the eye discovers and the hands shape. I am always drawn to new materials—lichen, seaweed, old ropes, willow, and more—and how I can alter the perception of those materials, exploring the expressions they can take.”

Jennifer Zurich Baskets
Jennifer Zurick, Random Thoughts (#792), willow bark, 12” x 8” x 7”, 2017
Entwined 4 (#823), willow bark, honeysuckle vine, 16.5” x 8” x 8″, 2021

Jennifer Zurick from Kentucky in the US, is a self-taught artist. She specializes in black willow bark which she has been harvesting and weaving into baskets since 1980. Zurick has exhibited internationally and created special commissions for Spanish firm Loewe (2019 Salone del Mobile, Milano) and the Irthi Contemporary Craft Council in Sharjah, UAE. “My work has been deeply influenced by Native American basketry, tribal textiles from around the world, and contemporary Japanese basketry,” Zurick says. “I aspire to create simple, elegant woven vessels that possess a richness of spirit and a presence embodying the soul of the tree from which they came …. The random woven pieces are my attempt to deviate from structured, methodical methods into more intuitive, flowing work that feels earth rooted and spontaneous, like something one might find growing along a woodland path, twisting and winding itself into the forest plants.” 

Join us at Field Notes to see more!

Field Notes: an art survey
May 3 – 11, 2025
browngrotta arts
Wilton, CT
Plan Your Visit Here: https://browngrotta.com/exhibitions/field-notes

Olga de Amaral: Magic in Scale, Materials, Technique

March 5, 2025 0 Comment

Even those who are not followers of extraordinary South American artist Olga de Amaral (born 1932) are likely to be familiar with her mystical golden landscapes. These reference the gold of Catholic altars in Colombia and pre-Columbian goldworking and its spiritual connotations. Her use of gold was also influenced by the Japanese technique kintsugi, which consists of repairing objects by highlighting their cracks and areas of breakage using gold powder. From the 1980s, gold leaf became one of her preferred materials — applied directly to cotton or to surfaces stiffened with gesso.

Olga de Amaral golden landscapes
Olga de Amaral’s golden landscapes: Tabla 28; Montaña 23, 2005. Photos by Carter and Tom Grotta.

In fact, de Amaral’s oeuvre encompasses so much more — weavings and fiber sculptures monumental in size, vibrant in color, varied in technique — that push the boundaries of textile art. Last year, when we learned about the comprehensive exhibition of her work planned at the Cartier Foundation in Paris, we formulated a plan to visit. We made it this week — just before it ends on March 16, 2025. The exhibition contains a remarkable 80 works, dating from the 1960s to 2018, some of which have never been seen outside of Colombia. Our recommendation: if you can drive or fly or travel by train to see Olga de Amaral before it ends, you should do so.  

Olga de Amaral
Olga de Amaral weavings: Lineneas en lino (1968); Encalado en laca azul (1978); Naturaleza mora (1979). Photo by Tom Grotta.

Following a degree in architecture, de Amaral was a student at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan in the 1950s and then resettled in Colombia, opening a studio in 1955. There she she combined the techniques she had studied with her knowledge of her country’s traditional textiles, in a spontaneous, expressive style inspired by the history and landscapes of her native soil: the high plateaus of the Andes, valleys and vast tropical plains. In the 60s, the artist introduced horsehair into her works. This thick, stiff fiber enabled her to increase the scale of her early works, becoming  monumental, like Muro en Rojas (Wall in Red).

Olga de Amaral installation including Muro en Rojas
Olga de Amaral installation including Muro en Rojas. Photo by Tom Grotta.

In the 70s, de Amaral explored new materials and techniques —  linen, wool, horsehair, even plastic, were woven, braided, sometimes coiled or knotted. Encaldo en laca azul (Whitewashed in Lime and Blue Lacquer)  is made up of purple and orange rectangular strips sewn in a dense, irregular pattern, The tips are painted in vivid turquoise reminiscent of Pre-Columbian feather art.

Olga de Amaral Encaldo en laca azul detail
Olga de Amaral, Encaldo en laca azul, detail (1978). Photo by Tom Grotta.

In 2013, de Amaral began a new series titled Brumas, consisting of diaphanous three-dimensional textiles that move slightly and show simple geometric patterns painted directly on the cotton threads. They evoke a cloud, a misty rain of pure color that the artist invites us to walk through.

Olga de Amaral Brumas installation
Olga de Amaral Brumas installation. Photo by Carter Grotta.

The exhibition’s locale contributes enormously to the viewer experience. In designing the exhibition space, the French-Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh immersed herself in de Amaral’s sources of inspiration: on the ground floor of Jean Nouvel’s building, surrounded by the glass and gardens, Ghotmeh created a landscape of slate stones connecting the interior, exterior, and the works, as though they were set in a stony, rugged landscape. On the below-ground level, she created a spiral (a motif found in some of de Amaral’s works), to guide visitors through an enveloping space in which the artist’s explorations gradually emerge. She calls her approach, “archeology of the future.” She wants to immerse visitors in “a timeless moment, rich in emotions and sensations.” The artist, architect, and the Foundation have ably succeeded.

Olga de Amaral installation
Olga de Amaral installation. Llanas, 1983; Riscos en sombre, 1985. Photo by Tom Grotta

Olga de Amaral
Through March 16, 2025
Cartier Foundation
Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain
261, Boulevard Raspail – 75014 Paris

Save the Date

February 5, 2025 0 Comment

Fiber art is having a moment. It’s “the new painting” according to Art in America and a trend that Artsy says will “take hold across the contemporary art world in 2025.”  Exhibitions of art textiles are on view across the US and Europe, including Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction which will open at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in April. 

Wlodzimierz Cygan
20wc Totems, Wlodzimierz Cygan, linen, sisal, fiber optic, 37″ x 37″ x 7″, 2022. Photo by Tom Grotta

In Field Notes: an art survey (May 3rd -11th), browngrotta arts will provide a high-level view of the fiber medium, informed by the gallery’s 30+ years specializing in the promotion of art textiles and fiber sculpture. 

Sung Rim Park
1-2srp Beyond 220723, 180623, Sung Rim Park, Hanji, 46″ x 36″ x 4″; 36″ x 36″ x 4″, 2023. Photo by Tom Grotta

In art and science, field notes generally consist of a descriptive element, in which the observer creates a word picture of what they are seeing — the setting, actions, and conversations; combined with a reflective portion, in which one records thoughts, ideas, and concerns based on their observations. In Field Notes, viewers will be able to observe a varied group of art works, reflect on the creators’ thoughts about their art practice, and generate their own questions and conclusions.

More than two dozen accomplished international artists will share what’s on their minds, what’s on their looms, and what’s inspiring their art process, just as the art form’s popularity crests, including Sung Rim Park, and a few other artists whose work we have not shown before. Works by fiber art pioneers, Kay Sekimachi (US), Sheila Hicks (US), and Mariette Rousseau-Vermette (CA), will also be part of the exhibition, providing insights about the medium’s evolution.

Mariette Rousseau-Vermette
171mr Reflets de Montréal, Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, wool, 42″ x 82″ x 2.5″, 1968. Photo by Tom Grotta

“Textile art is strong in Norway today,” says Åse Ljones. “It has gained a higher status, and is often purchased for public decoration.” In her work, she is “looking for the shine, the light and the stillness in the movement that occurs in the composition of my pictures,” she says. “I embroider by hand on linen fabric.” The viscose thread she uses adds glow and shine in the composition. “With different light sources,” she says, “the image changes all the time. As a viewer, one must be in motion to see and experience the changes.” 

Aby Mackie, who works in Spain, combines existing materials with the tactile intimacy of textile techniques. “By blending these elements,” she says, “my work challenges perceptions of craft and sustainability, offering new ways to perceive the familiar and celebrating the beauty of reinvention.” Mackie agrees with Ljones about the evolving role of fiber. “The field of fiber art is currently experiencing a profound shift,” says Mackie, “gaining recognition as a respected medium within contemporary art.” 

Fiber is “a powerful medium for storytelling and innovation in the current art world,” Mackie concludes. Join us in May as we highlight those stories and celebrate fiber art’s resurgence!

Sheila Hicks
40sh.1 Family Evolution, Sheila Hicks, 9” x 25” x 9”, 1997. Photo by Tom Grotta

Exhibition Details:
Visit Field Notes: an art survey at browngrotta arts, 276 Ridgefield Road, Wilton, CT 06897 from May 3 – May 11, 2025. 

Gallery Dates/Hours:
276 Ridgefield Road Wilton, CT 06897

Opening & Artist Reception
Saturday, May 3rd: 11am to 6pm
Sunday, May 4th: 11am to 6pm
(40 visitors/ hour)
Monday, May 5th – Saturday, May 10th: 10am to 5pm
(40 visitors/ hour)
Sunday, May 11th: 11am to 6pm
[Final Day] (40 visitors/ hour)

Safety Protocols: 
• No narrow heels please (barn floors)

Art Out and About, Winter 2025

January 22, 2025 0 Comment

We are deep in winter doldrums in the US — devastating fires in the West; plunging temperatures in the East. Art can be a balm and a bright spot. Here we round up some exhibitions of note and share some art news to remind you of the power of creativity.

We’ve already told you about the Sheila Hicks’ exhibition in Germany, Olga D’Amaral’s in France and Japandí Revisited: shared aesthetics and influences, in Wayne, Pennsylvania, which closes this weekend on January 25th at 4 pm after a lecture and reception. Below some notes from the US and abroad:

California
Cut from the Same Cloth: Textiles and Technology
Palo Alto Art Center 
through April 6, 2025
250 Hamilton Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94301

Works by Lia Cook
On view in Cut from the Same Cloth: Textile & Technology. Left to Right: Little Happy Accident, Lia Cook (2019) and Intense and Questioning, Lia Cook (2018) Photo curtesy of the artist.

As the Cultural Center observes, “textiles have not only fueled the creative inspiration of artists throughout history, they also have provided the catalyst for technological innovation. Joseph Marie Jacquard, a French merchant, invented the ‘jacquard machine’ in 1801, which simplified the manufacture of textiles and later became the inspiration for IBM’s first computer introduced in the 1940s and 1950s. This exhibition,” which includes Lia Cook, “investigates the many unexplored relationships between craft and technology and demonstrates, through the work of a group of artists, how contemporary art practice has seamlessly embraced both.”

9 x 9: Contemporary Quilts & Containers
Palo Verdes Art Center 
January 25 – April 12, 2025
Opening Reception: February 1, 2025, 6 – 9 pm
5504 Crestridge Road 
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275

works by Karyl Sisson
Karyl Sisson, Piece Work VII, Vintage paper drinking straws and polymer, 20.5″ x 20.25″, 2022, Photo by Susan Einstein; Speaking Out, vintage cotton/rayon ribbon, thread, mini-spring operated clothespins, 9″ x 14″ x 14″. Photo by Heather Cleary.

Beginning on the 25th, the Palo Verdes Art Center will showcase artworks by 18 distinguished artists from California’s established fiber art community. The artists, who include Karyl Sisson, Kay Sekimachi, and Carol Shaw-Sutton, will present innovative interpretations of traditional craft forms. “These dynamic quilted, woven, plaited, and twined works investigate the purposes and potential of cross-cultural narratives and techniques through diverse media,” says the Center, “expanding our understanding of visual culture. Material-based, conceptually engaged, and skillfully executed, these artists transform conventional quilting and container-making practices into sophisticated contemporary expressions.”

Denmark
Artapestry7, International Triennial
Kunst Centret Silkeborg Bad 
January 25 to  April 21, 2025
Gjessøvej 40
8600 Silkeborg, Denmark

Irina Kolesnikova textile
Detail: The Cage, 2022, Irina Kolesnikova, silk, flax, polyester; hand weaving, 138 x 98 cm. Photo courtesy of the artist.

This is the seventh time that the organization European Tapestry Forum has sent a juried exhibition of woven tapestries on tour in Europe, and the fourth time that the triennial has been exhibited in Silkeborg. The triennial, which includes work by Gudrun Pagter, Irina Kolesnikova, and Lija Rage, gives the audience a good insight into the current trends among weaving artists. The jury has selected the 37 most beautiful, skillfully executed and most creative tapestries from more than 100 submissions.

Washington, DC
We Gather at the Edge: Contemporary Quilts by Black Women Artists
Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum
February 21, 2025 – June 22, 2025
1661 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC

work by Myrah Brown Green
Myrah Brown Green, In My Akwabaa Form, 2000, cotton fabric and cotton batt, 95 × 86 in. (241.3 × 218.4 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Fleur S. Bresler, 2023.40.19, © 2000, Myrah Brown Green.

In 1981, the Smithsonian acquired 35 qulits collected by Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi, who holds a doctorate in aerospace engineering, is a prolific artist, curator, and scholar.  Dr. Mazloomi founded the African American Quilt Guild of Los Angeles, and then, in 1985, she founded the Women of Color Quilters Network, fulfilling the desire of isolated makers to connect and continue Black textile traditions. The quilts in this exhibition are remarkable in scope and groundbreaking in their representation of Black history and culture as told with needle and thread. “Sometimes the weight of living on this planet as a woman, we have to be reminded of who we are,” Dr. Mazloomi has said. “Quilts help to serve that purpose of reminding women about their power.”

New York
Anne Wilson: The MAD Drawing Room and Errant Behaviors
through May 11, 2025
Museum of Arts and Design
Jerome and Simona Chazen Building
2 Columbus Circle,
New York, New York 10019

Anne Wilson MAD Drawing Room
MAD Drawing Room at the Museum of Arts and Design, NY, NY. Photo courtesy Anne Wilson

Chicago artist, Anne Wilson has created the MAD Drawing Room, where visitors can engage in the beauty and complexity of the artist’s personal archives of lace and openwork textiles through close looking, drawing, or writing. The Drawing Room is inspired by the Davis Street Drawing Room, Wilson’s experimental and participatory art project in Evanston, Ilinois. Within the space, visitors are invited to explore Wilson’s library of art and fiber texts, listen to the playlist of sound sources for her video installation, and draw or write using the materials provided. Wilson’s sound-and-video installation, Errant Behaviors, newly acquired by MAD, plays in the gallery. Its source material of lace and openwork fragments are also on view in The MAD Drawing Room. You can see multiple images and learn more about the MAD Drawing Room on Wilson’s website.

Canada
Dawn MacNutt: Timeless Forms
through April 18, 2025
Mount St. Vincent’s University Gallery 
Mount Saint Vincent University
166 Bedford Highway
Halifax, NS
B3M 2J6

Feature image: Dawn MacNutt, Robin 2008. Patinated bronze, cast from twined willow, acrylic paint. Collection of the Nova Scotia Art Bank.

This comprehensive retrospective exhibition celebrates Nova Scotia artist Dawn MacNutt. Co-curated by Melanie Colosimo and Emily Falvey, this exhibition showcases MacNutt’s unique approach to weaving, which she transforms into large-scale figurative sculptures that explore themes of human fragility. Accompanying the exhibition is a catalogue featuring essays by the artist herself. Spanning four decades, the exhibition moves from delicate miniatures crafted in silver and copper wire to monumental bronze sculptures cast from woven, local willow branches. Together, these works link traditional craft practices to modern and conceptual sculpture and enrich contemporary perspectives on care and the handmade. Accompanying the exhibition is a book, Timeless Forms, that features essays by the artist herself.

work by Yeonsoon Chang
Yeonsoon Chang, Craft Trend Fair in Seoul, December 2024, teflon mesh, pure gold leaf, and eco-resin. Photo courtesy of the artist

Korea
In the art news department: The Korean Craft and Design Foundation selected Yeonsoon Chang as the winner of its 2024 Creation Division Prize. The artwork in the photo was showcased at this year’s Craft Trend Fair in Seoul in December 2024. It is made of Teflon mesh, pure gold leaf, and eco-resin. “The artist Yeonsoon Chang continues to create works that visualize a unique aesthetic through a Korean sense of beauty, transcending the boundaries of tradition and modernity, time and space, using the properties and structure of textiles,” the Foundation wrote. “Her ongoing dedication has set an example in the craft community and garnered international recognition for the excellence of Korean craftsmanship.”

Receiving the prize has energized and inspired Chang. “For the past nine and a half years since my retirement, I have immersed myself in the study of Eastern classics and the creation of my work,” she wrote on Instagram. “Through this journey, the once-abstract concepts of 空 (Emptiness) and 虛 (Void) have taken on a tangible and experiential reality. I believe the endurance of Korean craft over thousands of years is not solely due to its techniques but to the profound spirit that lies beyond them, deeply woven into its essence. Just days ago, I envisioned slowing the pace of my life to delve deeper into this path, yet now I find myself aboard a high-speed train, unable to control its momentum. Looking ahead, I see my calling as bringing to life the spirit of Korean craft, allowing it to breathe and resonate through my work.”

Japandí Revisited – Just 10 More Days

January 15, 2025 0 Comment
Japan Revisited installation
Japandi Revisted installation. Photo by Tom Grotta

We’ve been excited by the reaction to our Japandí Revisited partnership with the Wayne Art Center in Pennsylvania. Attendance has been good to date. Tours of viewers have been scheduled including the Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia and the American Swedish Historical Museum. There are 10 more days to see the exhibition and the two of us (Tom Grotta and Rhonda Brown) will be at Wayne on January 25, 2025 for the closing reception from 1 pm to 4 pm. 

Japan Revisited installation
Works by Naoko Serino, Helena Hernmarck, Keiji Nio, Kari Lønning. Photo by Tom Grotta

The Ethel Sergeant Clark Smith Gallery, where Japandí Revisited is installed, is airy and full of indirect light. In the exhibition we’ve had the opportunity to place Japanese and Scandinavian works side by side, so viewers can see the affinities for themselves. Flowers by Keiji Nio (JP) is hung next to Kari Lønning’s (NO) work Horn. In an imaginative merger of technology and tradition, Nio takes photographs, silkscreens the images on ribbons that he braids using Japanese technique kumihimo. In Horn, Lønning works with akebia, a vine found in the Northeast US. Horn is the largest work that Lønning has created from akebia.

Japan Revisited installation
Japandi Revisted installation. Photo by Tom Grotta

Agneta Hobin’s Clair de Lune (FI) fans made of steel and mica are displayed next to Oh! Precious by Hirohito Sato-Pijanowski (JP/US)i. Pijanowski’s work is made of glued paper cord. Both works use unusual materials — mica and paper cord — to create shine. Both reflect the exquisite craftsmanship that is another element of Japandí design.

Gudrun Pagter, Masakazu Kobayashi, Merja Winqvist. Photo by Tom Grotta

On another wall is Gudrun Pagter’s (DK) abstract, Framed, of wool, hangs beside Masakazu Kobayashi’s (JP) Bow White of layered silk and aluminum bows, each illustrating a preference for neutrals and primary colors, clean lines, and minimal ornamentation that are a third element of Japandí style.

Japan Revisited installation
Works by Eva Vargö, Masako Yoshida, Kogetsu Kosuge. Photo by Tom Grotta

Eva Vargo’s (SE) Book of Changes and Toshio Sekiji’s (JP) Counterpoint 8 appear on the same wall. In another spot in the gallery, appears Helena Hernmarck’s (SE/US), Shredded Memories series, in which strips of letters by her mother are incorporated into weavings.  Each of these works transforms used paper into art. Each repurposes materials and, central to these cultures’ approaches, each reflects respect for old and cherished items.

Japan Revisited installation
Works by Markku Kosonen, Ulla Maija Vikman, Jiro Yonezawa, Kay Sekimachi. Photo by Tom Grotta

Appreciation for natural materials is the fifth element attributed to Japandí style. The exhibition combines baskets of multiple materials made by artists from several countries. Bamboo, jasmine, walnut and cedar baskets by Hisako Sekijima join ramie works by Noriko Takamiya, and works of jute by Naoko Serino of Japan. Works of handmade paper and twigs by Jane Balsgaard of Denmark are shown as are works of willow with catkins still attached and crowberry root by Markku Kosonen of Finland.

Japan Revisited installation
Works by Mia Olsson, Hideho Tanaka, Jin-Sook So, Hisako Sekijima, Naomi Kobayashi. Photo by Tom Grotta

Hope you get a chance to visit Japandí.

Details through January 25th:
Japandí Revisited: shared aesthetics and influences
Wayne Art Center 
413 Maplewood Avenue
Wayne, PA 19087

Dates: 
Through January 25, 2025

Events:
Curator’s Talk: 
Saturday, January 25, 1:00 – 2:00 pm

Closing Reception:
Saturday, January 25 | 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Gallery Hours:
January 2025 (free admission)
Monday 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Tuesday 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Wednesday 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Thursday 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Friday 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Saturday 9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Sunday Closed

Also on exhibit at the Wayne Art Center is Craftforms, an international juried exhibition of contemporary fine craft.

Women Get the Nod – in Art at Least

November 20, 2024 0 Comment

We may not have seen the first female president in the US this year, but women are getting a well-deserved attention in the art world in 2024. We’ve previously written about women-centric exhibitions worth seeing: Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women which includes Lia Cook, Kay Sekimachi, Adela Akers, Katherine Westphal and may others, at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C, Sheila Hicks at the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop and the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf museums in Germany and Sublime Light: Tapestry Art of DY Begay, at the National Museum of the American Indian. All of these run through the winter into at least January 2025. 

Olga de Amaral installation
Olga de Amaral installation at the Fondation Cartier in Paris. Photo courtesy of Fondation Cartier.

But there are even more, exhibitions that highlight women as artists and art collectors and curators. Not to be missed are Olga de Amaral at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, Composing Color, the Paintings of Alma Thomas at the Denver Art Museum in Colorado, Georgia O’Keefe and Henry Moore, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, and Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern at the Museum of Modern of Art in New York. 

The Fondation Cartier Pour l’Art Contemporain is presenting the first major retrospective in Europe of Olga de Amaral, a key figure of the Colombian art scene and of Fiber Art. The exhibition brings together nearly 80 works made between the 1960s and now, many of which have never been shown before outside of Colombia. As the Museum explains, de Amaral’s unclassifiable work draws equally from the Modernist principles that she discovered studying at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in the United States, and the vernacular traditions of her country, as well as pre-Columbian art. The exhibition shines a light on the different periods that have characterized her artistic career: from her formal explorations (use of the grid, colors) to her experimentations (with materials and scale), as well as the influences that have nurtured her work (constructivist art, Latin-American handicrafts, the pre-Columbian era). The installation is breathtaking, with works hung in space amidst stones and sunlight. 

Alma Thomas, Elysian Fields
Alma Thomas, Elysian Fields, 1973, acrylic on canvas, 30.125″ x 42.25″, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of the artist, 1980.36.8

Composing Color explores the life of the groundbreaking American artist and educator, Alma Thomas, drawing on the extensive holdings of her paintings at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM). Thomas’s abstract style is distinct, where color is symbolic and multisensory, evoking sound, motion, temperature, and even scent. The exhibition is organized around the artist’s favorite themes of space, earth, and music.

Thomas was born in 1891 in Columbus, Georgia, She moved to Washington, DC, with her family when she was a teenager. She became Howard University’s first student to earn a degree in fine art in 1924 and went on to teach art in DC public schools for more than 30 years, as well as serving as vice-president of the Barnett Aden Gallery, one of the nation’s first racially integrated and Black-owned art galleries. In 1972, at the age of 80, Thomas presented solo exhibitions at both the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, earning her unprecedented recognition for a Black woman artist.

Henri Moore and Georgia O'Keefe
Henry Moore, Working Model for Locking Piece; Georgia O’Keefe, Jack in the Pulpit installation. Photo courtesy of the Museum of Fine Art, Boston.

As one of the most innovative artists of the 20th century, Georgia O’Keeffe left an indelible mark on modernism—and American culture at large. In the exhibition Georgia O’Keefe and Henry Moore reveals how nature in its many forms—most notably flowers and desert landscapes—influenced O’Keefe’s art. The way she approached her work carried through to how she approached life in general, from the way she dressed to how she decorated her home. Featuring more than 150 works, Georgia O’Keeffe and Henry Moore includes paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, as well as faithful recreations of each artist’s studio containing their tools and found objects. The studio installations illuminate the heart of their artistic practice—something rarely made visible in museum spaces—and create richer portraits of O’Keeffe and Moore by encouraging visitors to imagine how they worked and lived. This major exhibition is the first to bring these two artists into conversation, using compelling visual juxtapositions to explore their common ways of seeing. 

Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern, at MoMA focuses on the collection and legacy of Lillie P. Bliss, one of the Museum’s three founders and an early advocate for modern art in the United States. On view from through March 29, 2025, the exhibition marks the 90th anniversary of Bliss’s bequest coming to MoMA and includes iconic works such as Paul Cézanne’s The Bather (c. 1885) and Amedeo Modigliani’s Anna Zborowska (1917). 

Lillie P. Bliss installation at the MOMA
Installation view of Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern, on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York from November 17, 2024, through March 29, 2025. Photo: Emile Askey, courtesy MoMA.

Lilie P. Bliss accompanies the publication of MoMA’s book, Inventing the Modern: Untold Stories of the Women Who Shaped The Museum of Modern Art, a revelatory account of the Museum’s earliest years told through newly commissioned profiles of 14 women who had a decisive impact on the formation and development of the institution. Inventing the Modern comprises illuminating new essays on the women who, as founders, curators, patrons, and directors of various departments, made enduring contributions to MoMA during its early decades (especially between 1929 and 1945), creating new models for how to envision, establish, and operate a museum in an era when the field of modern art was uncharted territory. Bliss was an example of the women who shaped the Museum’s vision for modern art. When Bliss died, she left approximately 120 works to the Museum in her will. In an effort to ensure the Museum’s future success, Bliss stipulated that MoMA would receive her collection only if it could prove that it was on firm financial footing within three years of her death. In 1934 the Museum was able to secure the bequest, which became the core of MoMA’s collection. This included key works by Cézanne, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Modigliani, Odilon Redon, Marie Laurencin, and Henri Matisse. Bliss’s bequest wisely allowed for the sale of her works to fund new acquisitions, facilitating the purchase of many important artworks, including Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, which is featured in Lillie P. Bliss exhibition.

Hope you can get to see one or more of these exceptional exhibitions!

Exhibitions/Locations/Dates
Olga de Amaral 
Fondation Cartier,  Paris, France
through March 16, 2025

Composing Color: the paintings of Alma Thomas
Denver Art Museum, Colorado
through January 12, 2025

Georgia O’Keefe and Henry Moore
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
through January 20, 2025

Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern
Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York
through March 29, 2025

Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women
Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
through January 5, 2025

Sheila Hicks
Kunsthalle and Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop, Dusseldorf, Germany
through February 23, 2025

Sublime Light: Tapestry Art of DY Begay
National Museum of the American Indian
through July 13, 2025

Save the Date: Japandí Revisited in Wayne, PA, December 7, 2024 to January 25, 2025

October 23, 2024 0 Comment
Willow basket by Mark Kosonen, Indigo banner by Hiroyuki Shindo
54mk Willow Cat Basket, Markku Kosonen sibirica, satix phylicifalia, 7″ x 11.5″ x 11″, 1990
4hsh.1 Wall Hanging, Hiroyuki Shindo, linen, handspun and handwoven, indigo dye, 69″ x 17″ , 1995. Photo by Tom Grotta

It turned out so nice, we decided to do it twice. Three years ago we curated an exhibition at browngrotta arts exploring the inspirations shared by artists in Japan and the Scandinavian countries, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark. We uncovered so many interesting stories and artistic references among the artists we work with we’ve decided to revisit this topic again this winter at the Wayne Art Center in Wayne, Pennsylvania. Japandí Revisited: shared aesthetics and influences will open on December 7, 2024 and run through January 25, 2025. 

Basket Strings by Birgit Birkkjaer
102bb Woven Art Basket Strings, Birgit Birkkjaer, linen, paper, horsehair, hemp yarn, silk-steel, yarn, glue, 61″ x 35″ x 4″, 2024. Photo by Tom Grotta

The Ethel Sergeant Clark Smith Gallery at the Wayne Art Center is spacious and bright and an inviting space. Vistors to Wayne will see some familiar works alongside new ones, from Birgit Birkkjaer, Hiroyuki Shindo, and Naoko Serino. Japandí Revisited will also feature artists new to our Japandí assemblage, including Shoko Fukuda, Toshiko Takaezu, Aya Kajiwara, Kogetsu Kosuge, and Hiroko Sato-Pijanowski.

Åse Ljones and Naoko Serino
Åse Ljones, 16al Dobbel Domino, hand embroidery on linen, stretched on frame, 56.675″ x 57″ x 2.5″, 2015
Naoko Serino, Generating 9, jute, 30″ x 30″ x 7″, 2014. Photos by Tom Grotta

Japandí in design is a fusion style that references shared aspects of Scandinavian and Japanese aesthetics.  “It is the East-meets-West design movement. It blends Japanese artistic elements and wabi-sabi philosophy with Scandinavian comfort and warmth or hygge,” Shanty Wijaya, an interior designer and owner of AllPrace told Architectural Digest in 2023. “Both Japanese and Scandinavian design aesthetics are focused on simplicity, natural elements, comfort, and sustainability. It teaches us to find beauty in imperfection, form deep connections to the earth and nature, and enjoy the simple pleasures of life.”   

paper boat sculpture by Jane Balsgaard
38jb Relief, Jane Balsgaard, iron, bamboo, willow, fishing line and handmade plantpaper, 74″ x 18″ x 12″, 2014. Photo by Tom Grotta

There are four elements highlighted in Japandí Revisted — natural materials and sustainability, minimalism, exquisite craftsmanship and, as Wijaya notes, similarities between the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi and the Scandinavian concept of hygge. A respect for materials is found in both cultures. Danish artist Jane Balsgaard spent time in Japan in 1993 and 1998, preparing for exhibits there. Works of paper and twigs were the result. In her work, white paper often contrasts the dark color of the willow twigs.  “Another element in [Balsgaard’s] works that has connection to Japan,” writes Mirjam Golfer-Jørgensen, “is the skeleton, that partly frames the paper, partly combines with the hollows in the constuction, and gives another character to the paper that with a lightness that creates a contrast towards to the hollows.” (Influences from Japan in Danish Art and Design 1870 – 2010, Mirjam Golfer-Jørgensen, Danish Architectural Press, 2013.)

Gudren Pagter and Keiji Nio
5gp Framed, Gudrun Pagter, linen, sisal and flax, 65” x 60”, 2018
14kn Large Interlacing – R, Keiji Nio, nylon fiber, 54″ x 54″ x 15.5″, 2004. Photo by Tom Grotta

These cultures share is an affinity for purity, minimalism, and simplicity. Danish artist Grethe Wittrock’s work includes expanses of twisted paper strands in single colors — minimal and simple yet powerful expressions of what Finnish Designer Alvar Aalto called “the language of materials.” Wittrock observed the similar appreciation for minimalism firsthand when she traveled to Japan and studied with Japanese paper makers and renowned indigo dyer, Shihoko Fukomoto. “I started to uncover what Nordic sensibilities are by living abroad,” Wittrock says. “I lived in Kyoto, and saw an aesthetic in Japanese design similar to the Nordic tradition. You could say that there is an agreement that less is more. As they say in the Nordic countries ‘even less is even more.’” Gudrun Pagter is another Danish artist whose abstract works in primary colors reflect the modernism for which Scandinavia is known. “From the exotic and foreign land we find an aesthetically common understanding of a minimalist idiom,” Pagter says, “an understanding of the core of a composition — that is, cutting off everything ‘unnecessary.’”

Grethe Wittrock and Jiro Yonezawa
Grethe Wittrock , 2gr The Second Cousin, white paperyarn knotted on steelplate, 67” x 78.75”, 2006
Jiro Yonezawa, 100jy Red Fossil 20−4, bamboo, urushi laquer, 22.5” x 21.25” x 21”, 2020. Photo by Tom Grotta

Meticulous craftsmanship is another element heralded in Japandí. Stainless steel fibers are masterfully incorporated into the work of three of the artists in this exhibition. Agneta Hobin of Finland weaves the fine threads into mesh, incorporating mica and folding the material into shapes — fans, strips, and bridges. Jin-Sook So’s work is informed by time spent in Korea, Sweden, and Japan. She uses transparent stainless steel mesh cloth, folded, stitched, painted and electroplated to create shimmering objects for the wall or tabletop. The past and present are referenced in So’s work in ways that are strikingly modern and original.  She has used steel mesh to create contemporary Korean pojagi and to re-envision common objects — chairs, boxes and bowls. Kyoko Kumai of Japan spins the fibers into ethereal, silver landscapes.

Toshio Sekiji and Eva Vargö
Toshio Sekiji, 34ts Counterpoint 8, Korean newspapers; black urushi lacquer, 28″ x 25″ x 4″, 2009
Eva Vargö, 6ev No. 55 (Book of Changes), linen, thread, paper strings, gold leaves, 31.75” x 29.375” x 1.5,” 2019. Photo by Tom Grotta

Several artists in the Japandí exhibition evidence an appreciation for repurposing materials as wabi-sabi envisions. Toshio Sekiji’s works are made of newspapers from Japan, India and the US and even maps from Jerusalem. Paper is a material that creates an atmosphere as well as art. Eva Vargö, a Swedish artist who has spent many years in Japan, describes how washi paper, when produced in the traditional way, has a special quality — light filters through paper from lamps and shoji screen doors creates a warm and special feeling, in keeping with the appreciation of the imperfect embodied in wabi-sabi and wellness and contentment in hygge.

A sneak peek — here’s the Wayne exhibition in 2-D. Photo by Tom Grotta.

We hope you can make it to Pennsylvania this winter!

Art Out and About: Fall 2024

October 16, 2024 0 Comment

It’s Fall, which means a new crop of exhibitions in the US and abroad. We took a day off after Ways of Seeing, our recent exhibition, closed, and visited two exhibitions in our neighborhood, but there are others to see — from Washington, DC to Greencastle, Indiana to Dussedorf, Germany.

Tara Donovan
Aggregations by Tara Donovan at The Bruce Museum. Photo by Tom Grotta

Tara Donovan: Aggregations
Through March 9, 2025
The Bruce Museum
1 Museum Drive
Greenwich, CT 06830

“Known for her experimentation with materials and her rigorous, labor-intensive process, Tara Donovan is something of an alchemist. She transforms the mundane and familiar into the strange and otherworldly, even as her works approximate things found in the natural world. At the the Bruce, the artist explores the additive effects of “accumulating identical objects,” or aggregations, in which she layers and combines materials together to complicate visual distinctions between part and whole. The final monumental work inhabits the gallery with an almost animate presence, calling to mind a mineral or petrified plant.

Kumi Yamashita
Portraits by Kumi Yamashita at The Flinn Gallery. Photo by Tom Grotta

The Elusive Art of Kumi Yamashita
Through November 6, 2024
Flinn Gallery
Greenwich Library
101 West Putnam Avenue, Second Floor
Greenwich, CT 06830

Kumi Yamashita uses a series of techniques and simple materials to creating intriguing works of art. Discussing her shadow art series, Yamashita explains, “I sculpt using both light and shadow. I construct single or multiple objects and place them in relation to a single light source. The complete artwork is therefore comprised of both the material (the solid objects) and the immaterial (the light or shadow).” The exhibition also features provocative portraits crafted by meticulously winding a single, unbroken sewing thread around thousands of small galvanized nails and portraits on sheets created by stamping with vibram shoe soles.

Sheila Hicks
Sheila Hicks, Labyrinthe du paradis, 2024, Photo: Claire Dorn, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024

Sheila Hicks
Through February 23, 2025
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf  (Opening Friday, October 11 at 6pm)
Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop (Opening Saturday, October 12 at 2pm)
Dusseldorf and Bottrop, Germany

Opening this Fall, the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop and the  Kunsthalle Düsseldorf will present the first major solo exhibition of Sheila Hicks (b. 1934) across two cities. Comprising a total of 140 works from all creative periods, the collaborative presentation provides a comprehensive overview of the the artist’s multifaceted oeuvre for the first time in Germany.Sheila Hicks’ unique practice unfolds in the interplay between material, color, and space: in large and small-format wall works, tapestries, reliefs, sculptures, and installations, the seemingly infinite possibilities of these three dimensions unfurl. “What can you do with thread?” is the question that the artist has tirelessly explored since studying with Josef Albers at the Yale School of Art in the 1950s. 

DY Begay
DY Begay and her work. Photos by Helena Hernmarck

Sublime Light: Tapestry Art of DY Begay
Through July 13, 2025 
National Museum of the American Indian
National Mall
Fourth Street & Independence Avenue
Washington, DC 20560

Sublime Light: Tapestry Art of DY Begay celebrates more than three decades of innovation by fiber artist DY Begay (Diné [Navajo], b. 1953). As the materials from National Museum of the American Indian explain, “Begay’s tapestry art is at once fundamentally modern and essentially Diné, each work an exploration of the artist’s passion for experiencing and interpreting her world. The primary world that Begay explores is Tsélaní, her birthplace and homeland on the Navajo Nation reservation. From this firm foundation, her innate and lifelong curiosity has motivated her to investigate the expressive power of color and design in developing her distinctive aesthetic. Begay creates unique artworks that bridge her traditional Diné upbringing and experimental fiber art practice. Through her embrace of color, passion for design, and innovative handling of fiber, Begay creates art that expresses a non-Western way of being to a contemporary audience.” Sublime Light is the first retrospective of Begay’s career, showcasing 48 of her most remarkable tapestries.

Gudrun Pagter
Two vertical and two horizontal greens tapestry. Photo by Gudrun Pagter

ACROSS
Through November 10, 2025
Kalundborg Art Association
BispegaardenKalundborg, Denmark

Anne Bjørn, Gudrun Pagter, Gurli Elbaegaard and Lisbeth Voight Durand are featured in a group exhibition at the Kalundborg Art Association, entitled ACROSS.

Jiro Yonezawa
Spiraling, Twisting, Unraveling installation. Photo courtesy of ASU

Spiraling, Twisting, Unraveling: Explorations in Pattern and Form
Through June 29, 2025
ASU Art Museum
51 East 10th Street
Tempe, AZ  85281

Culled entirely from the Arizona State University’s Art Museum’s collection, Spiraling, Twisting, Unraveling: Explorations in Pattern and Form explores the dynamic landscape and languages found through contemporary craft today. The exhibition features twenty-five artists, including Christine Joy, Kay Sekimachi, Mary Giles, John Garrett, Polly Adams Sutton, and Jiro Yonezawa who examine dimensions of decoration, pattern and form through their varied practices to engage with some of the most pressing issues of our time.

Patterns of Abstraction
Installation: Patterns in Abstraction. Photo by by Mike Jensen

Patterns in Abstraction: Black Quilts from the High’s Collection
Through January 5, 2025
High Museum of Art
1280 Peachtree St, NE
Atlanta, GA 30309

According to the High Musuem, for more than a century, the potential kinship between quilts and abstract painting has sparked lively debate. “Although the color-rich geometric patchwork of quilts is visually resonant with examples of abstract painting often credited as pinnacles of artistic innovation, many have argued that such comparisons fail to honor the integrity of quilts within their distinct conditions of production. Quilts made by Black women have too often been left out of the conversation altogether.” The High has collected Black quilts since the 1980s and recently has quintupled its holdings to ensure that Black quilts have a continually rotating presence in the museum’s collection galleries. Patterns in Abstraction: Black Quilts from the High’s Collection aims to answer a larger question: “How can quilts made by Black women change the way we tell the history of abstract art?”

Lia Cook
Installation: Beyond: Tapestry Expanded. Photo by Stuart Snoddy

Beyond: Tapestry Expanded
Through Dec 8, 2024
American Tapestry Alliance
Richard E. Peeler Art Center
DePauw University 
10 West Hanna Street
Greencastle, IN 46135

Beyond: Tapestry Expanded is a curated and juried exhibition that features work from artists, including Lia Cook, exploring the expansive properties of tapestry. Using the definition of tapestry as a nonfunctional, handwoven pictorial structure, artists combine both hand and digital processes, using non-traditional materials, creating three-dimensional forms, or incorporating multi-media components, including sound and video. 

Enjoy!