Tag: art assembled

Art Assembled: New This Week December

January 5, 2018 0 Comment

2017 was a busy year for browngrotta arts! We featured more than 80 artists from Europe, Asia, North and South America and the UK in our celebratory 30th Anniversary exhibition Still Crazy After All These Years…30 Years in Art. Plunge: Explorations from Above and Below made quite the splash this summer at the New Bedford Art Museum. In addition to both exhibitions we also published our 42nd and 43rd catalogs: Still Crazy After All These Years…30 Years in Art and Plunge: Explorations from Above and Below, companion catalogs to both of our exhibitions.

Worn Susie Gillespie, homegrown, handspun flax, linen, 16.5" x 16.5" x 2.25", 2016.

Worn Susie Gillespie, homegrown, handspun flax, linen, 16.5″ x 16.5″ x 2.25″, 2016.

We started off December’s New this Week  with Susie Gillespie’s Worn. Gillespie’s work stems from her interest in archaeology and early textiles. Through her work, Gillespie strives to achieve a sense of earth, stone, vegetation and decomposition. In Worn, Gillespie uses handspun flax and linen to add a “clothiness“ that creates texture and life not possible with machine spun yarn.  “If all creativity stems from dissatisfaction, maybe for me it is a dissatisfaction with the ugliness of that is modern, and the ruin of what I imagine once to have been beautiful,” explains Gillespie “…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.”

 

Fuhkyoh Tsuruko Tanikawa, linked copper, 17" x 16" x 6.5", 2002, stainless steel wire

Fuhkyoh
Tsuruko Tanikawa, linked copper, 17″ x 16″ x 6.5″, 2002, stainless steel wire

Next up we had Tsuruko Tanikawa’s Fuhkyoh. Made with linked copper and stainless steel wire, Tanikawa’s Fuhkyoh. Tanikawa is a member of the Japanese contemporary basket group started by Hisako Sekijima in the 1980s. (30 years of Japanese Baskets, Hisako Sekijima and Friends.) In November 2017, Tanikawa’s work,  Flexible-6, won the Main Prize for Artistic Exclusivity at Ethno: The 10th International Biennial of Textile Miniatures in Lithuania.
Matrix III-201612, Chang Yeonsoon, polyester mesh, machine sewn, 14” x 14” x 4.75”, 2017

Matrix III-201612, Chang Yeonsoon, polyester mesh, machine sewn, 14” x 14” x 4.75”, 2017

Machine sewn with polyester mesh,  Chang Yeonsoon’s multilayered Matrix III is eye catching and thought provoking. Matrix III, like other pieces from Yeonsoon’s Matrix series, “derives from the oriental perspective that observes the human mind and body as unified,” explains Yeonsoon. “These fiber artworks represent my own Korean formative language. In them, I minimize my body while my mind fills with abstract ideas.”

Pressed Variation Series, Lia Cook, rayon, painted and pressed, 68" x 122", 1981

Pressed Variation Series, Lia Cook, rayon, painted and pressed, 68″ x 122″, 1981

We ended 2017 with Lia Cook’s Pressed Variation Series. Bridging textiles and technology, Cook weaves digital images of cherubic faces or dolls using a jacquard loom, while also incorporating patterns taken from EEG and MRI brain scans over er subjects. While the scans themselves evoke textile-like patterns, Cook’s ability to wind a thread between technology and craft has led to world recognization of her innovations in fiber and textile arts.

 

Art Assembled: New this Week November

December 8, 2017 0 Comment

 

Lead Relief Mary Giles lead, iron, wood 23.75” x 56 .75”” x 2”, 2011

Lead Relief
Mary Giles
lead, iron, wood
23.75” x 56 .75”” x 2”, 2011. Photo: Tom Grotta

We kicked off November’s New This Week with Mary Giles’ Lead Relief. “In Giles’ work, one will find the traditional basketry technique coiling alongside contemporary materials of waxed linen, copper, and iron,” notes the Textile Center. Giles’ uses both her basketry and sculpture as a means to express her concerns about the environment and human condition. Giles’ concern about the growing population is visible in works such as Lead Relief. In 2013, she was named Master of the Medium by the James Renwick Alliance of the Smithsonian Institution.

 

Sinuous, Randy Walker, found steel, cotton cord, nylon thread, 28” X 30" x 20”, 2003

Sinuous Horse, Randy Walker, found steel, cotton cord, nylon thread, 28” X 30″ x 20”, 2003. Photo: Tom Grotta

Sinuous Horse, is an example of how Walker, uses fiber as his medium to endlessly explore the possibilities of a single strand of thread. In Sinuous Horse, Walker used pieces of salvaged steel to create the bone-like structure of a horse. Walker then used nylon thread and cotton cord to form the curves of a horses body. “My work straddles precariously on several boundaries: solidity and transparency; structural stability and collapse; visibility and invisibility,” notes Walker “I strive to create work that primarily engages our sense of sight by contemplating how light can define structure, surface, and color.”

Kundalini Rising II, Pat Campbell,
rice paper, reed and wood, 24” x 14” x 6.5”, 2009. Photo: Tom Grotta

Delicately crafted of rice paper, reed and wood Pat Campbell’s Kundalini Rising II also made an appearance in November. The technique Campbell uses to create her rice paper sculptures is derived from those used to created Japanese shoji screens. Rice paper provides Campbell with the transparency she desires in creating a simple but spectacular piece of work. The thin nature of rice paper also allows Campbell to easily shape reed, wood, and paper cord necessary for her sculptures.

Fog Break, Mary Giles, waxed linen, iron, brass, 11” x 26” x 9”, 2011

Fog Break, Mary Giles, waxed linen, iron, brass, 11” x 26” x 9”, 2011. Photo: Tom Grotta

We concluded November with Fog Break, another impeccable piece by Mary Giles. When working with coiled forms such as Fog Break Giles uses waxed-linen, iron and brass. Giles individually cuts and hammers each piece of iron and brass and then torches the metal to alter the color. “By torching the metals I am able to alter the colors in varying degrees enabling me to blend them from darks to brights,” explains Giles. “I use this blending to interpret the colors, textures and light that I see in the natural settings.”

 

 

Art Assembled: New this Week in September

October 5, 2017 0 Comment
Currents, Nancy Koenigsberg, coated copper wire, 29" x 29" , 2016

Currents, Nancy Koenigsberg, coated copper wire, 29″ x 29″, 2016

September was quite the busy month for browngrotta arts. Summer officially ended and fall is here and as beautiful as ever. Owners and Curators Tom Grotta and Rhonda Brown went on an art-filled adventure to South Africa (to read about click here). In addition to our “New this Week” posts, we have also started posting “Art Live!” videos every Monday. There is a wealth of video contents available online that allows you to see artworks up close and learn about the artist. Some Art Live! videos feature interviews with artists, while others allow you to visit exhibitions or view the details of a particular piece. Still, others feature a close-up, 360-degree view of a single work.

Green Sow Sow, Michael Radyk, cotton, jacquard, 52" x 66" x 1", 2017

Green Sow Sow, Michael Radyk, cotton, jacquard, 52″ x 66″ x 1″, 2017

We started off September with Nancy Koenigsberg’s Currents, a square coated copper wire piece. The wire Koenigsberg uses for her work allows her to explore space. The delicate nature of the wire allows Koenigsberg to create lace-like layers. “The layers allow for transparency, the passage of light, and the formation of shadows,” notes Rhonda Brown in    Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in Art. The intertwining of the wires creates a complex fabric and variety of light and shadow.

Next up we had Michael Radyk’s tapestry Green Sow Sow. In his recent series, Corduroys, Migrations and Featherworks, Radyk drew inspiration from featherworks in Peru and Africa, cut corduroy structures from Peter Collingwood’s The Technique of Rug Weaving and the concept of migration. However, for Green Sow Sow Radyk drew inspiration from a conversation he had with Lousie Mackie, former Curator of Textiles and Islamic Art at the Cleveland Museum of art, about fakes and forgeries. The conversation inspired him to create a “forgery” of his own work by re-imagining two dimensions of work he had previously done.

Tonal Fifths, Rachel Max, dyed cane, plaited and twined. 25" x 21" x 7.5", 2017

Tonal Fifths, Rachel Max, dyed cane, plaited and twined. 25″ x 21″ x 7.5″, 2017

Tonal Fifths by Rachel Max was also featured this month. Max’s artwork challenges the relationship between containment and concealment, lines and shadow, and movement and space. Max constructs her forms with a combination of lace and basketry techniques. These techniques help her to creates an intricate, open weave fabric of interlinked lines. Max’s current work (such as Tonal Fifths) investigates the similarities between weaving and music. The musical composition of Max’s works are based on two or more themes which she works to weave together through her art.

Art Assembled: Featured in January

January 31, 2017 0 Comment

We had four New This Week selections in January, including evocative sculptures of black willow and recycled aluminum plate and two works that offer commentary on current events.

Christine Joy January New this Week

40cj Smoke Ring, Christine Joy
willow with black encaustic, 23″ x 22″ x 12″, 2014

Christine Joy sources, harvests and then transforms willow into dramatic sculpture. Smoke Ring represents a new direction for Joy, she says, “more looseness and movement on the edge, visually, of coming apart, more exploration of added color to give unity and emotional depth.”

Merja Winqvist January New this Week

11mw Water Lily, Merja Winqvist
recycled aluminum plate, 26” x 25.75” x 1.75”, 2016

Merja Winquist of Finland has created a stylized and shimmering Water Lily of recycled aluminum.

Ceca Georgieva January New this Week

14cg The Iron Curtain, Ceca Georgieva
burrdock burrs, 19” x 16” x 5” 2016

In Iron Curtain, a sculpture of burdock burrs, by Ceca Georgieva of Bulgaria, a figure seeks escape from a web of red threads. The work is about Georgieva’s generation, who remained n Eastern Europe after World War II on the Red side―the Communist side―of the Iron Curtain. “As children,” she says, “we proudly wore the red scarf of a Young Pioneer, and we believed whatever we were told to believe. Our future was programmed and seemed to be clear and beautiful. When cracks began to appear in the Iron Curtain and news from the West slowly filtered into the country, we learned about beat poetry, rock ‘n’ roll, blue jeans and Coca-Cola. We started to feel the lack of freedom and the desire to go out and to live without fear of restriction and deprivation. Then the wall fell down. Now, 25 years later, we are still in front of the half-open curtain, making efforts to get rid of the red iron threads.”

Norma Minkowitz January New this Week

66nm Are We The Same?, Norma Minkowitz, mixed media, 12” x 28” x 26.375”, 2016

Are We the Same? by Norma Minkowitz, also addresses societal change, in this case, assimilation. “My thought was about our society and how, as time goes on, we intermingle and intermarry, ” says the artist, “and at the end we are a combination of many different genes and DNA and perhaps are eventually blended in some way.” Enjoy our selections.