Tag: Cross Currents

Catalog Lookback: Cross Currents: Water/ Art/Influence an online exhibition

Moby Dick underwater
What Lies Beneath, is a mixed media sculpture created to submerge Moby Dick by Herman Melville underwater, 2016. Photo by Lawrence Labianca

Rippling, roiling, teeming with life…Deep, dark, waiting to be explored…Water has long been a potent influence for the artists we exhibit, artists who explore its mystery and majesty in widely divergent ways. Cross Currents: Water/Art/Influence is an online exclusive exhibition on Artsy that features works reflecting rivers, oceans and life aquatic. It highlights three catalogs we have published, Of Two Minds: Artists Who Do More Than One of a Kind, vol. 38; Plunge: explorations from above and below, vol. 43 and Blue/Green: color/code/context, vol. 44 and several artists for whom water has been an inspiration. The multifaceted exhibition combines sculptures, tapestries, installation works, paintings and ceramics. Each work resides at the intersection of the maker’s fascination with a variety of nautical and natural themes and the artmaking process. 

Sail Cloth Art by Grethe Wittrock
Artica, Grethe Wittrock, sail cloth, 2015. Photo by Tom Grotta

Judy Mulford’s meticulously detailed sculptures, inspired by her home at the beach in California, join Grethe Wittrock’s Arctica, a sculpture made from a repurposed sail from the Danish Navy. Debra Sachs‘ water studies evoke a sense of movement by distorting a static grid using the color blue as akin to a living thing, like the rivers and the oceans, shallow to deep, static to moving. Lawrence LaBianca creates experiences in which water is an integral part. In Skiff, an antique telephone receiver links viewers to sounds of a rushing river. Twenty-four Hours on the Roaring Fork River, Aspen, CO, is a print created by Drawing Boat, a vessel filled with river rocks that makes marks on paper when it is afloat. For What Lies Beneath/Moby Dick Book, LaBianca lowered an encased copy of Moby Dick into the water to capture an image. “I love the images that Melville created in Moby Dick, he says, “the idea of something greater below governed by forces deep within a person’s soul. What Lies Beneath/Moby Dick Book draws a continuum with the idea of something great below. It also is comical and slightly absurd.” Karyl Sisson works with found objects — clothespins, zippers, tapes — to create sea creature-like sculptures. In creating Haystack River Basket, Dorothy Gill Barnes was moved by the natural forms created of tree roots sculpted by rushing water.

River teeth basket by Dorothy Gill Barnes
Haystack River Basket, Dorothy Gill Barnes, early river teeth, 2011. Photo by Tom Grotta

In all, the work of 21 artists will be included in Cross Currents. Some are moved by water as a natural force, for others there is a more spiritual connection, still others are interested in how Man is impacting our oceans and rivers — in each case the results are thought provoking and intriguing. One-half of the works will appear on Artsy on June 8th, the reminder will be added on June 15th: https://www.artsy.net/show/browngrotta-arts-cross-currents-water-slash-art-slash-influence.


Our Spring Exhibition at browngrotta arts moves to September

New Date: September 12 to 20, 2020: Volume 50: Chronicling Fiber for Three Decades

Catalog cover for upcoming catalog: Volume 50: Chronicling Fiber for Three Decades
Catalog cover for upcoming catalog: Volume 50: Chronicling Fiber for Three Decades

Optimistic as we are about June — when we’d tentatively rescheduled our Spring exhibition — as being the time when we’ll have passed the illness apex and be able to go out and about once more, we’ve decided a new date in September makes more sense. We’re afraid that masks and gloves and disinfectant will still be de rigeur in June and they will impact viewers experience of the art. Air travel restrictions may still be be in place, which means fewer artists in attendance and and fewer out-of-town visitors.

Lija Rage, Dail Behennah, Gyöngy Laky, Blair Tate, Annette Bellamy
Lija Rage, Dail Behennah, Gyöngy Laky, Blair Tate, Annette Bellamy

An exciting exhibition: Both impacts would be unfair as Volume 50: Chronicling Fiber for Three Decades has shaped up to be an exciting show. It features significant works by Lia Cook, Gyöngy Laky, Aleksandra Stoyanov and Grethe Sørenson. Works by well-known but new-to-the-gallery artist, James Bassler, are included in addition to striking installations by Annette Bellamy and Agneta Hobin and new approaches by Tim Johnson, Kari Lønning, Carolina Yrarrazával and Dail Behennah. Strong works by Chiyoko Tanaka, Neha Puri Dhir and Adela Akers are among other offerings from the more than 60 artists participating.

Fiber Optic installation by Włodzimierz Cygan, Traps,  2019
Fiber Optic installation by Włodzimierz Cygan, Traps, 2019

So, in 2020, our Spring show will become a Fall show. The Artist Reception and Opening will be onSaturday, September 12th. We’ll welcome you all then with whatever precautions are appropriate.

In the meantime, online: As a run up to September, we’ll be presenting a series of online exhibitions on Artsy highlighting artists and catalogs from our archives:

May 11th: Catalog Look back: California Dreaming Vols. 26, 20, 6 and more

June 8th: Catalog Look back: Cross Currents – Arts Influenced by Rivers and the Sea Vols. 38, 35 and more

July 13th: Catalog Look back: Fan Favorites — Sekimachi, Sekijima, Laky and Merkel-Hess,Vols. 24, 19, 2, 3, 8, 5, 15, 16, 19 and more

August 10th: Catalog Look back: Cataloging the Canon – Tawney, Stein, Cook, Hicks and So Monographs: 1-3; Focus: 1, Vols. 13, 28

Until then, we’ll keep posting content on arttextstyle and our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages.

Stay safe and well! We’ll see you in in person in September and online between now and then.