Tag: Marian Bijlenga

Art Assembled: New This Week April

April 29, 2020 0 Comment

The art that we highlighted in April represents a wide variety of fascinating works, each of which is uniquely different – from textile, sculptures, basketry, and so much more. The talented group of artists that we’ve highlighted this month include Merja Winqvist, Marian Bijlenga, Heidrun Schimmel, Tim Johnson.

Merja Winqvist
 
12mw Four Seasons, Merja Winqvist, paper, shellack, 11.375, 63” x 4.5”, 2018, photo by Tom Grotta, courtesy browngrotta arts.

Merja Winqvist is a Finland-based artist who specializes in textile and sculptural art. Within her work, Winqvist applies the ideal of functionalism by simplifying the forms as much as possible, while avoiding unnecessary decoration. She has explained that in the parts of her works that appear decorative, there’s actually an important functional significance in terms of the cohesion and durability of the sculptures. 

Marian Bijlenga
33mb Korean Bojagi, Marian Bijlenga, horsehair and fabric, 22″ x 20″, 2017, photo by Tom Grotta, courtesy browngrotta arts.

Marian Bijlenga is a Netherlands-based contemporary artist. Frequently, her inspiration is drawn from her fascination with the rhythmical movements and empty space confined in dots, lines, and contours. 

Heidrun Schimmel
 32hsc Filamente, Heidrun Schimmel, linen, sisal, flax, 21.25” x 56” x 3.25,” 2017, photo by Tom Grotta, courtesy browngrotta arts.

Germany-based artist, Heidrun Schimmel, is influenced by Zen art and includes Zen meditation in her daily practice. “I love the following words of poet Shuntaro Tanikawa,” says Schimmel. “Which I had in my mind when stitching filaments: ‘A square is sometimes shy, and often slips into roundness…'”

Tim Johnson
Tim Johnson, 12ki Curve VI – white willow, sisal, earth pigments, 12.5 x 13” x 14.5” 2019, photo by Tom Grotta, courtesy browngrotta arts.

Tim Johnson is a United Kingdom-based artist who’s known for creating intriguing and detailed artwork, like, Curve VI, the piece featured here. “As soon as we try to define the nature and essence of baskets we unwittingly begin to exclude,” Johnson has observed. “Terminology becomes redundant. The deep sighs and ‘tut tuts’ of tradition serve little to preserve forms and techniques, but rather push on other generations to find their creative path.”

Marian Bijlenga Takes Grand Prize at the 5th Triennial of Textile Art

October 10, 2018 0 Comment

Marian Bijlenga being interviewed in front of her work, Large Sampler Dots, Photo by Simon Oud.

Marian Bijlenga being interviewed in front of her work, Large Sampler Dots, Photo by Simon Oud.

Marian Bijlenga‘s significantly sized work, Large Sampler Dots, was awarded the Grand Prix of Božena Augustínová at the 5th Triennial Textile Art of Today exhibition at the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum in Bratislava, Slovakia. Four hundred artists from 49 countries across 5 continents participated in the competition. Irina Kolesnikova, now of Germany and Joanna Zemanek of Poland were among the artists selected to participate. Zemanek was awarded the Visegrad Award. You can learn more about the work and Bijlenga’s process on the Textile Art of Today site HERE.

This year’s exhibition, continues through November 11, 2018 before touring to other venues in Europe throughout 2019, including:Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum (Slovak republic)
8.9.2018 – 11.11.2018
Tatra Gallery in Poprad (Slovak republic)
25.1.2019 – 16.3.2019The Moravian Museum in Uherské Hradiště (Czech republic)
18.4.2019 – 23.6.2019

Art Assembled: New This Week August

August 29, 2018 0 Comment

The Path which Leads to Center 18-05, Chang Yeonsoon, abaca fiber, barberry roots dye, 100% pure gold, 17” x 17” x 6.5”, 2017.

On tap in August were spectacular pieces by Chang Yeonsoon, Norma Minkowitz, Eduardo Portillo & Mariá Eugenia Dávila and Marian Bijlenga.


We kicked off August with Chang Yeonsoon’s The Path which Leads to Center 18-05. In much of her work, Yeonsoon dyes her fibers with indigo. However, in making The Path which Leads to Center 18-05 she used barberry root dye and 100% pure gold leaf. The process which Yeonsoon uses to apply the gold lead is a Korean technique called geumbak. Though geumbak is usually used with natural lacquer, Yeonsoon was able to create a new lacquer with gold leaf.

Trove, Norma Minkowitz, mixed media, 38” x 19” x 19”, 2018


On our trip to Norma Minkowitz’ studio this summer, which you can read about in our blog post HERE, we picked up Trove. The sculpture is made using small trinkets Minkowitz has collected throughout her life, therefore the reason why she named it Trove. To take a closer look at Trove watch the video we made HERE. 

Transición, Eduardo Portillo & Mariá Eugenia Dávila, alpaca; metallic yarns and silver leaf; moriche palm fiber, silk, 56″ x 24.25”, 2018


Next up, we had Eduard Portillo and Mariá Eugenia Dávila’s wall-hanging Transición. The wall-hanging’s vibrant purple hue makes the woven “mosaic” impossible to go unnoticed. Portillo and Dávila source and create all of their own materials. The Venezuelan couple grows their own mulberry trees on slopes of the Andes (Mulberry trees are the sole food source for silkworms), rear their own silkworms, obtain the silkworm threads and color the threads with their own natural dyes to use in making textiles.

Fish Scale, Marian Bijlenga, dyed fish scales, 64 x 113 x 1 in, 2012


To wrap-up the month of August, we shared Marian Bijlenga’s Fish Scale. Bijlenga is not afraid of challenging herself to work with new materials. In the past, she has worked with materials such as horse hair, viscose, paper and glass. Her piece Fish Scale is in fact made with extremely delicate fish scales. In making the piece, Bijlenga carefully connected a network of scales using very fine thread, giving the illusion that the scales are floating in mid-air. To see Fish Scale in detail, check out THIS video. 

Art Assembled: New This Week July

August 1, 2018 0 Comment

Stellae Pavonis, Federica Luzzi, waxed cotton cord, silk, cotton, rayon, polyester thread, copper wire, 25.25” x 21.25” x 3.25, 2018

Stellae Pavonis, Federica Luzzi, waxed cotton cord, silk, cotton, rayon, polyester thread, copper wire, 25.25” x 21.25” x 3.25, 2018. Photo by Tom Grotta

July was quite the month for us here at browngrotta arts. Not only did we share some spectacular new pieces on our social media, but we also shared behind the scenes shots of our pick-up at Norma Minkowitz’s studio, photos of pieces that have been acquired by major museums as well as photos of a few of our favorite artist collaborations. Here is a breakdown of the new art we shared on our social media throughout July:

To kick off July we shared Federica Luzzi’s Stellae Pavonis. In Latin, Stellae Pavonis translates to “the stars of the peacock.” “In the eye of the peacock’s feather and in its tail, which shows and closes the cosmic unfolding and all the manifestations that also appear and disappear quickly, there is a space left free, without boundaries,” explains Luzzi. “This space is in the closed eyes when we dream and in the open eyes when our attention is active.” You can view Stellae Pavonis in space HERE.

Rough Sea of Sado, polyester, aramid fiber, 48.25” x 47.5”, 2016

Rough Sea of Sado, polyester, aramid fiber, 48.25” x 47.5”, 2016. Photo by Tom Grotta

Next up, we shared Keiji Nio’s Rough Sea of Sado. Rough Sea of Sado is an imagined haiku from Japanese haiku master Matsuo Basho. In his haiku Rough Sea of Sado, Basho “describes the deep blue waves of the of the Sea of Japan as they are reflected in the night sky and the light blue waves as they hit the beach.”

 

Amazonas, Carolina Yrarrázaval, yute, jute, raffia and silk, 35.5” x 39.25”, 2017

Amazonas, Carolina Yrarrázaval, yute, jute, raffia and silk, 35.5” x 39.25”, 2017. Photo by Tom Grotta

 

Carolina Yrarrázaval combines jute, raffia and silk to create Amazonas. The bold wall-hanging came about as a result of Yrarrázaval’s strong fascination with resilient people of the Amazon who live in harmony with nature. “Remarkable primitive communities, they are preservers of ancient traditions,” writes Yrarrázaval. “Their exuberant green, full of life, moves me to an infinite emotion.”

Dutch Blue (Oval), Marian Bijlenga, camelhair, fabric, stitched, 34” x 34”, 2006. Photo by Tom Grotta

 

In making Dutch Blue Marian Bijlenga drew inspiration from blue-and-white pottery (Delftware and Delft Pottery) made in and around Delft in the Netherlands. Delftware is part of the of the worldwide family of blue-and-white pottery, using variations of the plant-based decoration first developed in 14th-century Chinese porcelain. Marian Bijlenga’s Dutch Blue is inspired by the patterns of Chinese porcelain and the Japanese philosophy of the Kintsugi. Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery, treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object. To this day,  Broken shards of pottery remain in the Dutch canals. See Dutch Blue in detail HERE.

Doorway, Rebecca Medel, knotted linen and cotton 5 planes, 51.5” x 32.25” x 8”, 1996

Doorway, Rebecca Medel, knotted linen and cotton 5 planes, 51.5” x 32.25” x 8”, 1996. Photo by Tom Grotta

 

We wrapped up July with Doorway by Rebecca Medel. “During the decades that I used knotted netted grids to create open planes, I constructed several pieces with the door as a structure to symbolize the transition and passageway from one place to another,” says Medel. “The open grid suggests a possibility that the door could be an entry or exit from one dimension to another dimension, and form finite space to infinite space.”

First Look: Blue/Green: color/code/context, April 28th – May 6th at bga, Wilton, CT

April 4, 2018 0 Comment

Blue Green exhibition Marian Bijlenga

30mb Dutch Blue (Oval), Marian Bijlenga
camelhair, fabric, stitched
35” x 35”, 2006, photo by Tom Grotta

For this year’s Art in the Barn exhibition, we asked artists to enter a blue or green period of their own and send us a work that conveyed one of the many meanings, connotations and moods of these colors. The result is Blue/Green: color/code/context, an exhibition of remarkably diverse works from more than 50 artists from 15 countries. Marian Bijlenga of the Netherlands, for example, has created an enigmatic wall work inspired by Dutch blue china fragments. The work is inspired, she says,  by the patterns of Chinese porcelain and the Japanese philosophy of the reuse of broken tiles and her collection of Dutch blue shards, collected in Amsterdam.

Ceramic Blue Green exhibition

Yasuhisa Kohyama
51yk Kaze
ceramic
14.75” x 11.5” x 4.75”, 2017

Yasuhisa Kohyama has created, Kaze,  a ceramic with a grey-greenish cast, hand built and wood fired in an anagama kiln. “With the properties of the shigaraki clay and its inclusions of feldspar and silica, the high heat, the atmosphere in the kiln and the falling of the wood ash on the pots all present, warm colors as well as attractive markings can be captured on the surface of the clay,” Kohyama explains. “The blue-green and red-orange colors develop in the mid-section of the kiln; In the back of the kiln, a heavily reduced atmosphere creates rich dark gray and brown colors.”

Tapestry Blue Green exhibition

4gp Thin Green Horizon
Gudrun Pagter, sisal, linen and flax
45.25” x 55”, 2017

The Green Horizon is the striking abstract tapestry created by Gudrun Pager of Denmark for the exhibition. “Perhaps it is the horizon between heaven and sea, or between heaven and earth – or the line between heaven and earth?” Pagter muses. “The thin, horizontal line is made with many shades of blue and green thin linen. The main color is blue, but the thin, green horizon is essential to the whole picture.”

Wendy Wahl Blue Green exhibition

37ww Changing Tides
Encyclopedia Britannica pages
27” x 42”, 2018

Encylopedia Britanica pages are the material Wendy Wahl uses to express our  station in  time, recognizable as they are as  a   part  of  a  particular  collective  consciousness. Wahl’s Changing Tides is made of 275  pages of the 1988 Encyclopedia Britannica Annual of World Data, the only book in Wahl’s collection of EB volumes that contained blue paper. The pages were cut into seven sections, for each of the continents, contemplatively scrolled and compressed into 1925  whorls to symbolize the reality of rising water around the globe. These four are just a sampling of the more than 70 works that will be on display in the Blue/Green: color/code/context exhibition and in the companion catalog, which will be available at www.browngrotta.com after April 28th. To visit Blue/Green: color/code/context, here are the details:  Saturday, April 28th, 1-6 pm: Opening and Artists Reception

Sunday April 29th – Sunday May 6th, Viewing Hours 10-5 pm.
For more info: http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/calendar.php; 203-834-0623.
This year’s exhibition is co-sponsored by Litchfield Distillery.

Art News: Publications

October 18, 2017 0 Comment
A number of interesting and varied press reports, books and catalogs have crossed our desk at browngrotta arts in the last couple of months. The truly glorious Spoken Through Clay,  Native Pottery of the Southwest: The Eric S. Dobkin Collection, edited by Charles S. King (Museum of New Mexico Press) is one example. The volume documents 300 vessels in the Dobkin collection in large-scale, meticulously corrected color photos, a collection that has a “unique and distinctive focus on aesthetic of the vessel.” King has organized the works into several sections: Dreamers, Traditionalists, Transitionists, Modernists, Visonaries, Transformists and Synchronicity. The Navajo artists — mostly Pueblo — provide uniques insights into the works.
The catalog from Ane Henriksen’s recent exhibition in Denmark, Ane Henriksen in collaboration with Jens Søndergaard, is another.  Visual artist and weaver Ane Henriksen returned to Museum Thy in Denmark in June, with “a handful of great pictures,” inspired by the painter Jens Søndergaard’s works. The catalog chronicles that exhibition. For a number of years, Ane Henriksen has worked with image theories, including at the National Workshops at the Old Dock in Copenhagen. For 25 years, she has lived in Thy and created woven pictures inspired by nature and culture there. Highlighting work by Sara Brennan, James Koehler and Ann Naustdal among others, the Coda 2017 catalog is the third Coda volume published by the American Associate of Tapestry. It also includes informative
essays by Lesley Millar, Alice Zrebiec and other authors.
Several recent magazines have also featured browngrotta arts’artists including Fiber Art now’s Summer 2017 article, “Marian Bijlenga: Creator and Curator” by Jamie Chalmers. Chalmers notes that Bijlenga’s works dissect individual elements and disperse them while still maintaining an order to the arrangement. “[T]he incisions in the work reinforce the notion of scientific intervention and have echoes of the natural architectural work of Andy Goldsworthy, someone Biljenga’s cites as an influence.” In the September/October 2017 issue of Crafts magazine from the UK, Laura Ellen Bacon’s elegant work of willow is the subject of a feature, which notes that she has created a new work of Flanders Red willow, “about movement and vigor and trying to show how the material is being worked,” for the Woman’s Hour Craft Prize, for which Crafts noted in its July August issue, she is a finalist.
In the fall 2017 issue of Interweave Crochet, Dora Ohrenstein explains how Norma Minkowitz has established crochet “as a legitimate tool for artistic expression ”recognized by the 31 major museums that have acquired her work, including the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in her article “Norma Minkowitz: A Life in the Fiber Arts.” And online in “Randy Walker: Thread Held in Tension,” textileartist.org shares “what fires Randy’s imagination…how his background in architecture has shaped his artistic vocabulary…and how he puts together his subtle, yet mind-blowing installations.” Look for them.

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.

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.

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.