Category: Sculpture

Artist in the House: Jane Balsgaard from Denmark

June 26, 2017 0 Comment

 

Browngrotta arts’ artist Jane Balsgaard recently visited the gallery on her way to the opening of Plunge: explorations from above and below at the New Bedford Art Museum. Balsgaard, a native of Denmark, has been very busy lately. In addition to participating in both Plunge and our 30th Anniversary Exhibition, Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art, Balsgaard has just completed a lofty commission for the Hotel Bretagne located in Hornbaek, Denmark.

Jane Balsgaard working

Jane Balsgaard holding “Deck,” a new piece she made while visiting browngrotta.
Photo by Tom Grotta

For the Hotel Balsgaard was commissioned to create something to adorn a 29.5 ft wall facing the Hotel’s staircase. Gallery Hornbaek owner, Susanne Risom, saw Balsgaard’s work as a solution to the immense design dilemma. Balsgaard’s installation, titled Waterfall, consists of 18 reliefs, one sculpture, and one relief in the ceiling, all made with natural materials.

"Waterfall" by Jane Balsgaard

Looking down Jane Balsgaard’s “Waterfall” at the Hotel Bretagne.

The reliefs, varying in length, stretch down the length of the wall creating a straightforward course for the eye to follow. In a statement for Gallery Hornbaek, which assisted in arranging the commission, Art Historian Johan Zimsen Kristiansen explains that the “in the transition between pins, a number of small harmoniously matched fractures and character, along with transparent dots or bubbles of colored paper, all contribute to creating the falls’ dynamics,” and connect the once problematic space.

"Wilton Boat" by Jane Balsgaard

Jane tediously working on “Wilton Boat.”

During her visit at browngrotta arts in Connecticut, Balsgaard worked on a new piece called Wilton Boat, a 12.5” x 11” x 1.5” sailboat made from glass and natural materials, which she sourced fro her yard in Denmark and ours in Wilton.

You can see Jane Balsgaard’s newest works in in browngrotta arts’ online exhibition Cross-Currents: Art Inspired by Water and at the Plunge exhibition through October 8th and of course, by booking a stay at the Hotel Bretagne.

Art Assembled Featured in May

June 6, 2017 0 Comment
New this Week in May Red Ferne Jacobs

3fj Interior Passages, Ferne Jacobs, coiled and twined waxed linen thread, 54” x 16” x 4”, 2017, Photo by Tom Grotta

Tapestry and sculptural fiber were on tap in May as browngrotta arts’ New This Week selections. First up, Interior Passages, Ferne Jacob’s remarkable wall sculpture of coiled and twined wax linen, a large and complex work that speaks against the desecration of women around the world. Interior Passages needs no one to tell her who she is or what she is says the artist. “She knows her value, and I expect the world to respect this inner understanding. When it doesn’t, I think it moves toward a destructiveness that can be devastating.”

New this Week in May Helena Hernmarck Tapestry

Helena Hernmarck in front of her tapestry Tabula Rasa 3, 2011, Wool, 37.5″ × 57″, Photo by Carter Grotta

Helena Hernmark’s Tabula Rasa 3 , integrates an unusual background of polyester from sequin making that adds a glimmer to the tapestry in the right light. The work is part of a series that included the first Tabula Rasa, commissioned for Yue-Kong Pao Hall, Purdue University.

New this Week in May Jo Barker Dark Shimmer

Dark Shimmer, Jo Barker , wool, cotton and embroidery threads, 34” x 29.25” x 1.25”, 2017, Photos by Tom Grotta

Dark Shimmer, by Scottish artist Jo Barker, is from the series for which she won the prestigious Cordis tapestry prize in 2016.

New this week in May Complex plaiting by Norie Hatekayama

Complex Plaiting Series Pile 02, Norie Hatekayama , plaited paper fiber strips, 11” x 11” x 10”, 2002, Photo by Tom Grotta

Norie Hatakeyama’s Complex Plaiting Series, Pile 02 is made of paper tape. Hatakeyama’s plaited works reflect the complex structures that make up the universe. “Human beings explore structure in nature and create science and art,” she says. “I’ve observed that the transition of science (mathematics, geometry, etc.) and art overlaps with the direction of my work. I feel deeply that the outside world, the natural world, is a field, made up of matter and energy, repeating regeneration and radiating unremitting energy.”

Plunge: explorations above and below Opening Tonight, New Bedford Art Museum, Massachusetts

June 2, 2017 0 Comment
Annette Bellamy Long Lines

Annette Bellamy Long Lines

Rippling, roiling, teeming with life… Deep, dark, waiting to be explored…
Water has long been a potent influence for artists wishing to explore its majesty and mystery.

For the last several months, browngrotta arts has worked with Jamie Uretsky, Curator and Noelle Foye, Executive Director of the New Bedford Museum of Art/ArtWorks! in Massachusetts. Plunge: explorations from above and below, which examines the influence of water in the work of 16 artists from around the world, is the result.

New Bedford Plunge installation

Plunge explorations from above and below installation

The multifaceted exhibition combines sculptures, tapestries, installation works, paintings and photography. Each work resides at the intersection of the maker’s fascination with a variety of nautical and natural themes and the artmaking process. Plunge pairs Helena Hernmarck’s monumental woven depiction of tall ships in New York Bay 1884 and Chris Drury’s Double Echo, a print that superimposes a fragment of an echogram from Flight W34 over East Antarctica and an echocardiogram of the pilot’s heartbeat. In other galleries, Heather Hobler’s meditative photographs of seascapes join Karyl Sisson’s “sea creatures” made of domestic objects like zippers and clothespins; Christopher Volpe’s evocative paintings join Grethe Wittrock’s Arctica, a sculpture made from a repurposed sail from the Danish Navy. Unlike most musuem exhibtions, the works in Plunge are all available for sale.

Thirteen of the artists in Plunge, representing five countries, are represented by browngrotta arts: Dona Anderson; Jane Balsgaard; Annette Bellamy; Marian Bijlenga; Birgit Birkjaaer; Chris Drury; Helena Hernmarck; Lawrence LaBianca; Sue Lawty; Judy Mulford; Karyl Sisson; Ulla-Maija Vikman; Grethe Wittrock. Their work, and that of the three other artists in the exhibition, Heather Hobler, Anne Leone and Christopher Volpe, will be included in the catalog for the exhibition, designed and photographed by Tom Grotta. It will be available beginning June 5th at www.browngrotta.com.

Plunge’s opening is tonight Friday, June 2nd at the New Bedford Museum of Art from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Jane Balsgaard, one of the artists in Plunge, will attend from Denmark.

The New Bedford Art Museum is great cultural destination for those on the way to the Vineyard, Nantucket or the Cape. You have plenty of time to see it, as the exhibition continues through October 7, 2017. The New Bedford Art Museum/ArtWorks! is located at: 608 Pleasant Street/ New Bedford, MA/02740/508.961.3072/info@newbedfordart.org.

We’re getting crazy great press for our 30 years in art

May 23, 2017 0 Comment
Wilton, Bulletin, The Norwalk Hour, Coastal, Venu selvedge, Fiber Art Now, Good Morning Wilton, Eventbrite, Cottage and Gardens, New England Home

30th anniversary press clippings

We were in the news a lot last month for browngrotta arts’ 30th anniversary and our annual exhibition, Art in the Barn, Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art. Here’s a sampling of our clips– selvedge, Venü, New England Home, Coastal Connecticut, Fiber Art Now blog, the Wilton Bulletin and the Norwalk Hour, Cottages and Gardens, Eventbrite, Good Morning Wilton, Eventbrite,  Fiber Arts Now. It’s our 30th anniversary all year, so watch for more news, including about Plunge: explorations above and below, an exhibition about to open at the New Bedford Museum of Art (May 26 – October 8, 2017) in Massachusetts.

Still Crazy…30 Years: The Catalog

May 21, 2017 0 Comment
Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog Cover Naoko Serino and Mary Yagi

Still Crazy…30 Years: The Catalog

It’s big! It’s beautiful (if we do say so ourselves –and we do)! The catalog for our 30th anniversary is now available on our new shopping cart. The catalog — our 46th volume — contains 196 pages (plus the cover), 186 color photographs of work by 83 artists, artist statements, biographies, details and installation shots.

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog

Naoko Serino Spread

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog

Michael Radyk Spread

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog

Lilla Kulka Spread

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog

Jo Barker Spread

The essay, is by Janet Koplos, a longtime editor at Art in America magazine, a contributing editor to Fiberarts, and a guest editor of American Craft. She is the author of Contemporary Japanese Sculpture (Abbeville, 1990) and co-author of Makers: A History of American Studio Craft (University of North Carolina Press, 2010). We have included a few sample spreads here. Each includes a full-page image of a work, a detail shot and an artist’s statement. There is additional artists’ biographical information in the back of the book. Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art can be purchased at www.browngrotta.com http://store.browngrotta.
com/still-crazy-after-all-these-years-30-years-in-art/. Our shopping cart is mobile-device friendly and we now take PayPal.

Art Assembled: Featured in April

May 1, 2017 0 Comment


April has been a busy month for us at bwongrotta arts. We’ve been celebrating our 30th Anniversary for the past 10 days so one of our new this week items was a short video about our 30th Anniversary exhibition, Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art.

outdoor bronze sculpture featured new this week April

21dm Timeless Figure, Dawn MacNutt, bronze, 51″, x 21″, 2004. Photo by Tom Grotta

We added outdoor sculpture for this exhibition and highlighted Dawn MacNutt’s bronze work, Timeless Figure, which began as a willow sculpture before it was cast in bronze.

boat wall reliefs featured new this week April

34b Small Reliefs, Jane Balsgaard, willow, cotton rope, fishing line, handmade plant paper, plastic wire ties, 36” x 80”, 2015-16. Photo by Tom Grotta

Jane Balsgaard’s small reliefs of willow, cotton rope, fishing line, handmade plant paper and plastic wire ties also featured this month. Balsgaard’s airy “boats” of plant paper will be featured in Plunge: Explorations Above and Below at the New Bedford Art Museum, Massachusetts, that opens Memorial Day weekend, official opening June 2nd: http://newbedfordart.org. We’ve partnered with NBAM to mount Plunge; 13 of browngrotta arts’ artists will be included. We’ll be preparing a catalog for the exhibition which is open through October 8, 2017. This month we also drew attention to

horsehair wall relief featured new this week April

25mb Untitled, Marian Bijlenga, horsehair, cotton, viscose, 15” x 15”, 2012. photo by Tom Grotta

Marian Bijlenga’s untitled work of horsehair, cotton and viscose. Bijlenga is one of the artists in Still Crazy as is Gyöngy Laky. Her is her work, Lefty Loosey, Righty Tighty a digital print combined with bullets for building.

Art Televised: Mary Merkel-Hess on PBS’s Craft in America

April 20, 2017 0 Comment
Craft in America

Mary Merkel-Hess on PBS series Nature, Craft in America

This month, the PBS series, Craft in America, will premiere its episode titled “Nature,” which features profiles on internationally acclaimed artists who use dimensional art to explore nature’s marvels. Among these visionaries is fiber artist Mary Merkel-Hess, a participant in browngrotta arts’ upcoming exhibition, Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art, slated to run from April 22nd through April 30th at the browngrotta arts’ barn/gallery in Wilton, Connecticut.

A native of the Midwest, Mary Merkel-Hess’ home state of Iowa represents the creative force behind many of the art pieces she fashions. By drawing inspiration from the area’s prairie elements, including its vast fields of grass, corn, shrubs and herbs, she creates dimensional art pieces that translate her experiences and familiarity with the Midwest and its unique aesthetics. In fact, many of her abstract pieces are inspired by the images she captures and masterfully replicates from the prairie garden surrounding her home and workshop.

In Chephren's Temple

In Chephren’s Temple, Mary Merkel-Hess

Working with fiber and other materials, such as paper, wood, reed, and acrylic paint, Merkel-Hess creates what she refers to as “Landscape Reports,” fiber vessels that provide a sense of place and containment for the viewer to experience and enjoy. Her process involves building upon layers of paper with careful insertion of reed or cord, creating a mold that is then shaped and painted. Her fiber sculptures illustrate Iowa’s abundance of tall grass, fields and open green space, allowing others to bring a piece of the Midwest, as well as Merkel-Hess’ inspirational prairie garden, to their home.

Airing Friday, April 21, 2017, “Nature” will highlight Mary Merkel-Hess’ creative process, as well as that of other artists, sculptors and woodcarvers whose dimensional artwork challenges audiences to reassess their relationship to the natural world. Check you local PBS listings. You can view more samples of Merkel-Hess’ fiber artwork at http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/hess.php.

Art Inside and Out: Sculpture featured at browngrotta arts’ 30th Anniversary

April 17, 2017 0 Comment

For our 30th anniversary exhibition, Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art, browngrotta arts will feature outdoor sculptures by two prominent international artists, Dawn MacNutt and Mariyo Yagi.

Dawn MacNutt Timeless Figure

Dawn MacNutt Timeless Figure. Photo by Tom Grotta

Dawn MacNutt, a native of the Canadian province Nova Scotia, incorporates an assortment of natural materials, such as twined willow, seagrass and copperwire, into each life-size sculpture. By crafting these column-like figures, MacNutt masterfully captures the beauty and frailty of the human form.

Bronze detail

Dawn MacNutt Bronze sculpture detail. Photo by Tom Grotta

Among MacNutt’s masterpieces is, 2000–2005, a series of figures of willow and seagrass, each standing at 5’8” inches high. As with many of her fiber sculptures, MacNutt’s Return to Delos illustrates the humancondition as a source of imperfections and vulnerabilities but also reveals that, through these flaws, humans connect with one another and thereby create a sense of identity. She achieves this sentiment by leaving her columns purposely unfinished so that bare sticks remain untied and left to reach out to the world surrounding them. browngrotta arts’ exhibition features one of MacNutt’s willow figures cast in bronze, a material used by early imperial cultures. The bronze version is nearly indistinguishable from its willow counterpart, but the bronze permits the installation to withstand outdoor weather conditions.

 

Mariyo sculpture

Mariyo Yagi A Cycle – Infinity, 2016. Photo by Tom Grotta

Mariyo Yagi of Kobe, Japan, uses a combination of rope, bamboo, metal, and even glass to fashion a series of spiraling art installationsthat embody her theory of nawalogy—onenessmade of diversity. Through her art installations, she examines how nawa, the modern Japanese word for “rope,” is not made using one strand but, rather, with a series of strands inthe form of a spiral. Similar to how communication and inter-exchange establisha community, her pieces demonstrate how the energy from spiral structuresimitates the links between heaven and earth, as well as DNA and the universe.  

stick sculpture

John McQueen Skew, stick sculpture, Photo by Tom Grotta

jute sculpture

Naoko Serino Existing- 2-D jute sculpture. Photo by Tom Grotta

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


There are also many indoor sculptural works featured in Still Crazy After All These Years, including John McQueen’s stitched twig figure, Askew, and Naoko Serino’s ethereal floating square of jute. Learn more about these and other artists in the browngrotta arts’ 30th anniversary exhibition on our Artists page.

Still Crazy After All These Years Preview: Stitch in Time – Embroidery

April 12, 2017 0 Comment

Embroidery stitches – deliberate and in flurries – feature prominently in the work of six of the artists in browngrotta arts’ upcoming exhibition, Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art, this April 22nd through April 30th.

Heidrun Schimmel Detail

”Was du Weiß auf Schwarz Besitzt
(text/textile/texture) by Heidrun Schimmel Detail, photo by Tom Grotta

Heidrun Schimmel from Germany creates her artwork, which features blizzards of stitches, entirely by hand. She believes her stitch work demonstrates how thread, through its length and quality, acts as a metaphor for human existence.

Åse Ljones embroidery

Sound of the fjord detail by Åse Ljones, photo by Tom Grotta

Different pattern sequences are incorporated by Åse Ljones of Norway into her art pieces. By doing so, she allows each small change in sequence to create a rhythm, tranquility, or excitement for the viewer to enjoy. “I often work in series,” she says, “and build large works from smaller pieces. The small changes in each work communicate and often strengthen the relation to one another.”

silk drawing by Scott Rothstein

Untitled by Scott Rothstein, photo by Tom Grotta

Scott Rothstein, whose work has been collected by the Metropolitan and the Philadelphia museum of art, blends minimal design and traditional materials to create ambiguous art forms that viewers must experience and interpret on their own. His embroideries feature brilliant colors and repeated stitches to add dimension.

horsehair thread sculpture

Grow – Grid 16.11 by Marian Bijlenga, photo by Tom Grotta

Marian Bijlenga of the Netherlands has a fascination with dots, lines and contours that is evident in her artwork. She playfully introduces unique contour lines of color and symmetry through her stitched work, using a variety of textile fabrics and materials, including paper, thread and horsehair. Rather than draw on paper, she draws in space using textile as a material and leaves enough distance between the structure and its aligning wall to create what she refers to as a “spatial drawing.”

Adela Akers Small Blue Tapestry

Dark Horizon, 3016 by Adela Akers, photo by Tom Grotta

Delicately combining a series of horsehair, recycled wine foil, and acrylic paint, Adela Akers creates her embroidered pieces by hand with careful insertion of each fine material.“Even when I don’t know the outcome,” she says, “it is the transformation of the materials by the repetitive hand manipulation that leads me to the final expression.”

embroidered sculpture

Growth 2 by Anda Klancic, photo by Tom Grotta

Anda Klancic uses transparency and coloring to address the visual play of perception between the mimetic and the abstract. Her work in this collection, as well as in previous pieces, attempts to express the relationship between humanity and nature.
Slovenian artist Anda Klancic uses a combination of innovative embroidery techniques, many of which are patented under her name, allowing her to meticulously blend metal with cloth cotton or tree bark to fashion abstract pieces that crystallize the aesthesis of nature.

For more information and a complete artist’s list, please visit http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/calendar.php.

Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art Preview: Hello Again!

April 6, 2017 0 Comment

For our 30th anniversary exhibition, we’ve invited six artists that had worked with browngrotta arts in previous years. Three; Leon Niehues, John Garrett and Kari Lonning, work in vessel forms. Laura Foster Nicholson and Eva create weavings and Carol Shaw-Sutton sculptural forms of fiber.

Woven Open Neck by Leon Niehues. Photo by Tom Grotta

Leon Niehues, a studio basket maker, creates his vessel forms from the young white oak trees that grow in his immediate area of the Ozarks. While using traditional splint techniques, he has added new construction methods and simple design elements that dramatically change his oak baskets into exciting contemporary pieces. We’ve captured several samples of his designs in a catalog that features his work and that of Mary Merkel-Hess. View them at: http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/c15.php.

Emerging from Chaos by Kari Lønning. Photo by Tom Grotta

Best known for her double-walled constructions and a complex-weaving process she refers to as her “hairy technique,” Kari Lønning works extensively with graphic patterns, using both bold and subtle color schemes. Lønning’s work is also featured in a browngrotta arts’ exhibition catalog, Mary Giles/Kari Lønning, which can be viewed at http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/c11.php.

Age Basket No.4 by John Garrett, recycled metals. Photo by Tom Grotta

A weaver and teacher of experimental basketry, John Garrett’s weaving materials consist of aluminum, steel, brass, or cooper in slat or wire form. Many of his creative pieces are included in the permanent collections of museums nationwide. View samples of his weaving in our catalog, Dorothy Gill Barnes and John Garrett: http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/c14.php.

Being Here by Laura Foster Nicholson. Photo by Tom Grotta

Laura Foster Nicholson is a textile artist known for her powerful hand-woven tapestries that feature whimsical, engaging imagery. Her artwork is featured in several museum collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, The Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Denver Art Museum, among others. Nicholson was included in the 10th Wave II: New Textile and Fiber Wall Art: http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/c18.php.

Ist All History by Eva Vargo. Photo by Tom Grotta

Eva Vargö fuses paper and linen-thread materials into her weaving techniques to employ paper craft artwork. Many of her pieces are inspired by her own life experiences and also by integrating the various materials she discovers on her travels across the world. Vargö is from Sweden, but has lived in Korea as well as Japan. Vargo was included in the Retro/Prospective: 25+ Years of Art Textiles and Sculpture: http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/c25.php

White Sound by Carol Shaw-Sutton. Photo by Tom Grotta

A participant in browngrotta arts’ 25 for the 25th: Glancing Back, Gazing Ahead http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/c25.php, Carol Shaw-Sutton creates sculptural forms of fiber. Her artwork often consists of personal narrative objects and installations that utilize both ancient and modern textile. Her new work focuses on our inter relationship to each other, which is reflected in images of the human form as organic flowing substance.

Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art runs from
April 22nd to 30th at browngrotta arts, 276 Ridgefield, Connecticut. For more information, visit: http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/calendar.php.