Category: Exhibitions

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Susie Gillespie

March 30, 2012 0 Comment

SETTLEMENT detail by Susie Gillespie, photo by Tom Grotta

Susie Gillespie’s weavings contain many influences besides those of ancient textiles that have survived the millennia. The artist writes that she finds “beauty in the ruins of what once must have been new: the patterns in damp and crumbling plaster; the remains of paint on decayed wood; rotting bark; broken carvings; fallen monoliths. Some of these I express in broken borders, insets and slits; twining and wrapping; weaves of herringbone and twill; mends, darns, fraying; drawn threads and slits.” She seeks to reinvent the past to some extent, “Despite my weaving having roots in the past, I look forward to a future where we do not discard things because they are worn out or outmoded. Out of decay and disintegration I wish to express a sense of renewal.”

Settlement by Susie Gillespie, antique handspun linen & Nepalese nettle yarn, modern linen, cotton, natural pigments from caves. gesso, hand-made paper, 45.5″ x 48″ x 1″, 2010, photo by Tom Grotta

At SOFA NY 2012, browngrotta arts will exhibit Gillespie’s 2012 work, Settlement, in which the artist has combined antique handspun linen yarn, handspun Nepalese nettle yarn, modern linen, cotton, natural pigments from caves, gesso and handmade paper to create a contemporary haptic artifact. Gillespie’s work has been exhibited at the Coombe Gallery, Dartmouth, UK; Somerset House, London, UK (Origin); Torre Abbey, Torquay, UK; Brewery Arts Centre. She is a recipient of the Theo Moorman Trust Weaving Award.

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Mary Giles

March 29, 2012 0 Comment

TWIST by Mary Giles, photo by Tom Grotta

53mg TWIST, Mary Giles, waxed linen, iron twists, and hammered tin coated copper wire, 22″ x 10″ x 5″, 2012, photo by Tom Grotta

Mary Giles‘ sculptures, Sentry Field and Twist, made of knotted linen, pressed metal and springs, will be on display at browngrotta arts at SOFA 2012 , booth 208.  Giles says of her work,  “I interpret and express my concerns about our environment and the human condition through my work. I have also explored themes related to communication and intimacy in relationships, and the results are reflected in my figural work. Today, however, I am very concerned about the environment and try to capture the forms, textures, and light found in nature. I admire the directness and honesty I see in tribal art, and I try to incorporate those qualities in my own.” Giles’ work is in numerous museum collections including that of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the St. Louis Art Museum  and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Chris Drury

March 28, 2012 0 Comment

Crossing and Recrossing the Rivers of Iceland by Chris Drury, photo by Tom Grotta

Chris Drury’s Crossing and Re-crossing the Rivers of Iceland will be exhibited by browngrotta arts at SOFA NY 2012. The handwritten text on the peat-impregnated paper lists and repeats all the rivers crossed on a six- day walk from Porsmork to Landmanalauga in Iceland. The pattern is from a satellite image of a storm that hit us on the fourth day. The story behind Crossing and Re-crossing the Rivers of Iceland Drury and a friend with a heart condition, went on a six-day walk in central Iceland. On the fourth day they were hit by a storm and waited out the night in a hut. The following day, the storm was still raging but they used a four-hour lull to try and catch their plane.  They started for the next hut at 3:00 p.m., crossing a cold river and climbing 2000 feet to a snow-covered plateau. On the top the storm returned and they were enveloped in a whiteout.

7cd Crossing and Recrossing the Rivers of Iceland, photo by TomGrotta

Drury’s friend announced that he wasn’t going to make it to the hut. He was, in fact, having a heart attack. Drury didn’t know it, but his heart was shutting down. He gave him some water, which he used to swallow pills given him by his doctor for just such an emergency. The pills saved his life and he was able to make it to the hut. This experience is reflected in Crossing and Re-crossing the Rivers of Iceland. The blood flows in the heart in a double vortex pattern called a Cardiac Twist; the storm that Drury and his friend were caught in had that same pattern. Drury is an environmental artist who has created site-specific works from South Africa to Ireland to Wyoming. In recent years he has studied systems in the body and on the planet, with particular reference to systems of blood flow in the heart, including combining measurements of the “Earth’s heartbeat,” echograms of Antarctica, with the heartbeat, echocardiogram, of a pilot who flies there in his work, Double Echo. Drury’s work has been included in several books, including Chris Drury: Found Moments in Time and Space (Harry N. Abrams, Inc.).

25 at 25 at SOFA NY Countdown: Lia Cook

March 27, 2012 0 Comment

Neural Networks Detail by Lia Cook, photo by Tom Grotta

At SOFA NY 2012, browngrotta arts‘ display will include Neural Networks by Lia Cook. Cook works in a variety of media, combining weaving with painting, photography, video and digital technology. Cook’s current practice explores the sensuality of the woven image and the emotional connections to memories of touch and cloth. Working in collaboration with neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburg School of Medicine,

23lc Neural Networks, Lia Cook, woven cotton and rayon, 83″ x 51″ x 1.5″, 2011, photo by Tom Grotta

Cook has investigated the nature of the emotional response to woven faces by mapping in the brain these responses and using the laboratory experience both with process and tools to stimulate her work in reaction to these investigations. Her solo exhibition, Bridge 11: Lia Cook, which includes large-scale woven images of human faces and introduces several works based on her recent art-neuroscience collaboration, is at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft through May 13th. Cook is one of 11 artists whose work is highlighted in the current exhibition, Sourcing the Museum, at the Textile Museum in Washington, DC through August 19th and one of 14 artists featured in Sleight of Hand at the Denver Art Museum through May 13th.

Art News: Korean Art Gains Exposure

March 9, 2012 0 Comment

The Korean Art Show opened this week at 82 Mercer Street in New York and runs through March 11th. Interest in Korean Art is on the rise. The Museum of Arts and Design and Korean Art Show opened the Korean Eye: Energy and Matter from last November through February. It was accompanied by a 300-page catalog. Last year’s Cheong-ju International Craft Biennale featured artworks by 189 international artists. The Korean Design & Craft Foundation began exhibiting at SOFA expositions in 2010. In recognition of this escalation of interest we offer this online view of work by three accomplished artists from Korea who explore traditional and innovative techniques in their work.  Chang Yeonsoon was Artist of the Year at the National Museum of Art in Seoul in 2008. The artworks of her Matrix series illustrate the Asian perspective of the human mind and body as unified, rather than separate. To transform her abstract ideas into three-dimensional structures requires an elaborate 12-step process that includes starching, ironing, cutting and sewing sparsely woven abaca fiber after dyeing it with indigo. Jin-Sook So has spent much of her career in Sweden and her work reflects her time in two cultures.  So creates abstract and rhythmical works by applying various techniques to wire mesh, organza and paper. Her works, like Untitled Steel Mesh in the permanent collection of the Museum of Arts and Design, combine Western influences and Korean sensibilities.  Young-Ok Shin transfoms traditional Korean aesthetics into contemporary works of art.  In Ways of Wisdom, for example, which is part of the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the artist repurposed an entire volume of a 19th-century printed version of the The Analects of Confucius to create five scrolls, woven with ramie and cotton threads, standing, rather laying flat in the traditional manner, each presenting the five elements of the East Asian cosmology: Water (black); Fire (red); Earth (yellow); Wood (blue) and Metal (white).

Exhibit News: Fiber Philadelphia 2012

February 29, 2012 0 Comment

This weekend marks the opening of Fiber Philadelphia is an international biennial and regional festival for innovative fiber/textile art.Pick up a copy of the FiberPhiladelphia directory, with all the venues listed (there’s even an app to help you get directions). You’ll see our 25th Anniversary ad in the Directory, featuring work by Ritzi Jacobi and Mary Merkel-Hess, and an ad for SOFA NY featuring a concrete basket by Klaus Titze and a much-appreciated congratulations to us. Among the Philadelphia exhibitions we hope to visit later this month: Distinguished Educators, at the Crane Arts Building: Grey Area, 1440 North American Street through April 12th which includes celebrates significant artist/mentors who have shaped the field:

WINTER GOLD, Adelea Akers, Linen, horsehair, paint & metal 30″ x 72″, 2011

Adela Akers, Lewis Knauss, Gerhardt Knodel, Gyongy Laky, Joan Livingstone, Rebecca Medel, Jason Pollen, Cynthia Schira, Warren Seelig, Deborah C. Warner, Carol Westfall, Pat Hickman, solo and in collaboration with the late Lillian Elliott; Andrea Donnelly: Binary, Sondra Sherman: Found Subjects at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, 251 South 18th Street, through April 21st; and Secret Garden, which includes work by Lenore Tawney, Mary Merkel-Hess, Ted Hallman, Sheila Hicks,
and Jim Hodges at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Perelman Building, Fairmount and Pennsylvania Avenues, through July.
Visit the FiberPhiladelphia website for complete details. http://www.fiberphiladelphia.org/

 

On Exhibit Abroad: Sørensen, Bilenga and Drury

February 5, 2012 0 Comment

Traces of Light, couples digital jacquard by Sorensen and video by Bo Hovgaard

Grethe Sørensen’s work is the subject of a dramatic installation at the Round Tower in Copenhagen, Denmark. Traces of Light, couples digital jacquard by Sørensen and video by Bo Hovgaard, film & video producer. Video recordings of light in the city at night served as the starting point for the project. The unfocused camera acts as a filter that transforms the realism of billboards, street lamps and brightly colored surfaces into varying color effects. The recordings reflect four themes: Rush Hour, City Light, Passing by and Times Square in a Rush. The exhibition includes 18 large weavings alongside the video in large format. The flowing movements of the video create an ethereal counterpoint to the weight and structure of the weavings. Rundetaarn Købmagergade 52A, 1150 Copenhagen K, 33 73 03 73; post@rundetaarn.dk; http://rundetaarn.dk/engelsk/udstillinger.html#Traces_of_Light_; through March 11, 2012.

Traces of Light, couples digital jacquard by Sorensen and video by Bo Hovgaard

 

A Sense of Place, at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, 251South Street, http://www.philartalliance.org/exhibitsnew.htm, includes work by Marian Bijlenga and seven other artists. It closes on April 21st.

Bijlenga’s work will be part of Langsam + Leise (Softly + Quietly) at Künstlerforum Bonn, Hochstadenring 22-24, 53119 in Bonn, Germany, http://www.kuenstlerforum-bonn.de/typolight/index.php/suche.html?keywords=bijlenga&x=0&y=0, which opens March 11th and runs through August 4, 2012.

Chris Drury’s work will be a part of Landscapes of Exploration, at the Peninsula Arts Gallery, Plymouth University, UK, from February 11th to March 31, 2012. Ten visual artists, one musician and three writers undertook residencies in the Antarctic between 2001 and 2009, under the auspices of the British Antarctic Survey, supported by Arts Council England. This exhibition will bring together for the first time art resulting from the various artistic investigations, offering an opportunity to examine the role of contemporary art in examining Antarctica. Plymouth University, Roland Levinsky Building, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA; http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=28345#landscapes.

8cd Double Echo, Chris Drury, Inkjet print with UV coating, 54.25″ x 46.25″ x 2.75″, 2000

The Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery in Drake Circus will feature a companion exhibit, From Plymouth to Pole: Scott, Science and the Men who Sailed South through April 14, 2012.

Exhibition News: Green from the Get-Go at the Wayne Art Center a “Must See”

January 8, 2012 0 Comment

Green From the Get Go: Jiro Yonezawa, Hisako Sekijima, Jan Buckman, Dona Anderson, Gyongy Laky, Chris Drury, John McQueen, Dail Behennah and Christine Joy

Green From the Get Go: Valerie Pragnell; John McQueen; Dawn MacNutt; Mary Merkel-Hess; Naoko Serino; Kay Sekimachi; Marien Hildebrandt

There are just two weeks left to see the exhibition Green from the Get Go: International Contemporary Basketmakers at the Wayne Art Center in Pennsylvania. The Ethel Sergeant Clark Smith Gallery, where the exhibition is hung, is an attractive space with high walls and ceilings.

Green From the Get Go: Chris Drury and Dail Behennah

Green From the Get Go: Hisako Sekijima and Jiro Yonezawa

The installation is exciting — if we do say so ourselves – with work displayed on and off the floor and hung from the ceiling. But don’t just take our word for it. On philly.com, Victoria Donahoe of the Philadelphia Inquirer called Green from the Get Go “superb”  and “[a]bsolutely must-see.”  handmadeinpa.net calls it “a mind-bending (and fiber bending) exhibition of out-of-this-world baskets.”  And visitors have been kind enough to write us:  “Beautiful exhibit, both the artwork of course and the installation;” “…some of the work took my breath away;” “Thank you for putting together with Jane Milosch such a stimulating exhibition.” Green from the Get Go features more than 50 works by 28 artists. Through January 21st: Wayne Art Center, 413 maplewood Avenue, Wayne, PA 19087, 610-688-3553; http://www.wayneart.org/exhibition/green-from-the-get-go-international-contemporary-basketmakers.

Guest Post Alert: Crafting Modernism by Carol Westfall

December 26, 2011 0 Comment

In her second post, Carol Westfall reviews Crafting Modernism

Music Rack Wendell Castle, 1964 REQUIRED PHOTO CREDIT: Purchased by the American Craft Council, 1964

at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York CIty through January 15, 2011.
https://arttextstyle.com/guest-posts-carol-westfall 

Exhibition News: Collection Focus: Dorothy Gill Barnes and David Ellsworth at the Racine Art Museum through January 15, 2012

December 12, 2011 0 Comment

Dorothy Gill Barnes and David Ellsworth are drawn to working with wood to create sculptural forms, however each has a different approach to using the material.  Collection Focus: Dorothy Gill Barnes and David Ellsworth at the Racine Art Museum in Wisconsin spotlights the use of organic materials, primarily wood and bark of various trees. Although each artist’s work is very different in terms of structure and the process of creation, their sculptural objects and vessels will be displayed together to establish a visual and critical survey of their similarities and differences.

Dorothy gill Barnes, Seven Moon Dendroglyph – photo by Tom Grotta

Although Dorothy Gill Barnes is usually categorized as a fiber artist, RAM’s collection of her work concentrates on sculptures she has created from trees, especially from their bark and limbs. Barnes is known for developing a distinct working process that includes scarring trees that have been marked for eventual removal and, returning years later after the trees have been cut, harvesting the grown bark as a decoratively scarred skin to use in her baskets. This technical advancement enables her to create dendroglyphs—literally, “tree drawings.” This is a process in which Barnes makes careful incisions into the bark of a living tree. Over time, it forms a scar around her designs—the tree and time both becoming collaborators with the artist, with the process taking anywhere from a few months to 17 years. Barnes’ early influences were the artist and teacher Ruth Mary Papenthein, who taught at Ohio State University, and Dwight Stump, an Ohio-based traditional basket maker. She also credits the works of John McQueen and Ed Rossbach as setting a standard for experimenting with natural materials to make contemporary sculpture.

Dorothy Gill Barnes portrait with works for her first browngrotta exhibit

Barnes eventually taught fibers as an adjunct faculty member at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, from 1966 until her retirement from university teaching in 1990. Throughout much of her career, Barnes has also been a sought-after teacher who has traveled across the US and around the world conducting classes and residencies.The work of Dorothy Gill Barnes is the realization of a combination of sources and technical investigations that have placed her at the forefront of contemporary fiber art.Beginning with traditional basketry techniques and their dedication to the container form, she has steadfastly advanced through a career-long process of experimentation to become known around the world for her sculptures that utilize bark cultivated from trees.

Barnes uses electric tools to expand the scale, scope, and complexity of her pieces and she credits power equipment as the source for ideas that handwork alone would not have suggested. She is comfortable employing nails, metal wire, and staples along with traditional woven assembly methods. In all of her sculptures, Barnes seeks to create structures that honor the growing things from which they came. She highly prizes experimentation, spontaneity, inventiveness, and an openness to the wood and the process that is both intellectually playful and leaves her open to changes in the composition that nature offers. Barnes’ work is also included in Green from the Get Go: International Contemporary Basketmakers at the Wayne Art Center in Pannsylvania through January 21st.

David Ellsworth Vessel, 1987 Macassar ebony Racine Art Museum, Promised Gift of Jane and Arthur Mason Photography: Jon Bolton, Racine, WI

David Ellsworth is an influential presence in the modern wood turning community. He has both channeled and challenged the idea of functional turned wood vessels. At one point, he began creating his own bent turning tools to achieve his conceptual and aesthetic goals. Principles of design and working with clay have been important in the formation of his artistic concepts and approaches. Ellsworth has long been inspired by a wide range of objects and philosophies, finding direction from artists such as sculptor Mary Frank, woodworker James Prestini, and ceramics artist Paul Soldner and valuing the design and “spirit” of Native American art and architecture. In the last ten years, the Racine Art Museum has acquired over 40 works by Ellsworth—with a sizable number of pieces created over a broad spa, both small and large scale.

The exhibition ends January 15th. Racine Art Museum, 441 Main Street, Racine, Wisconsin 53403, 262.638.8300.