November 24, 2014- A Dutch Connection

Recently I was very excited with the news of the publication of my work in a magazine and book from the Netherlands!  After sending photos and an email interview back and forth, the November issue of Textiel Plus arrived with a three page spread about architectural elements in my work.  

The book, Textile Art Around the World, a beautifully printed hard cover quality edition, gives each accepted artist one page and features just about every kind of textile art you can think of.  I enjoyed each and every interaction with Dorothé Swinkels (Textiel Plus) and Ellen Bakker (Textile Art), both of whom were wonderful to work with.  Textile Art Around the World can be ordered at http://www.textile-link.com/new-textileart-around-world.

October 19, 2014 Denver Autumn Sampler

Last weekend, after a panel discussion at The Pattern Shop about Wopo Holup’s work (see September 29, 2014 post), I took advantage of being downtown to see two other shows.  A beautiful fall Rocky Mountain day was perfect for seeing art.

At aBuzz Gallery, Pat Isaacs Red Thread showcased her recent encaustic work.  Full of energetic movement and intriguing textures, the two halves of Skip and Peel 1& 2 spoke well to each other.

Detail

Motley 6, 7, the left hand pair of a four panel piece also moved the eye back and forth with suggestions of wind moving through trees or branches.

I hadn’t been to William Havu Gallery in the Golden Triangle for quite some time but was drawn there by several items on their latest announcement, especially Homare Ikeda’s paintings.  They were really wonderful with lots of color, yummy paint strokes and some interesting repeating motifs such as dots and sharp angles that made the images relate to each other across the room.

Mrs. A

Lady C

Upstairs  were the mysterious smoke drawings of Dennis Lee Mitchell.  Somehow calling to mind the human form and also black and white photographic negatives, they were haunting and beautiful.

Poylyptych

Detail

Back downstairs was a large ceramic wall piece, Quadrants 1-40, by Nancy Lovendahl.  Using 12” textured squares, the artist united the composition by repeating the circle, rectangle and meandering line elements.

September 29, 2014-Autumn in the Denver art scene-RINO

Sorry for the long absence for which I have no excuse except being buried in the studio.  This weekend, however, was glorious in Denver and my husband and I got out to gallery-hop downtown in the River North (RINO) neighborhood.  

The Ice Cube gallery was featuring two solo shows by Regina Benson and Ray Tomasso who often show together due to their shared sensibilities and interest in natural phenomena.  Regina's show, Catching Fire, is her second showing inspired by Colorado’s devastating wildfires.  Her monumental pieces, made from rusted, discharged, re-dyed and manipulated fabric is even more successful than the first, with the pieces illuminated from within by various intensities of flickering light.  You could almost hear the flames crackling.

Detail of texture

Tomasso’s exhibit, Wind and Storm; New Works In Paper, shows his mastery of cast paper in large very textural pieces implying the weathering of the earth through the forces of nature.

Detail

A group show at Helikon Gallery, a wonderfully large and very open exhibition space, featured the work of three artists in a group show, Great Plains Three Point Perspective, which included painting, photography and ceramic work.  Reed Weimer, one of the artists who happened to be at the gallery, generously shared information about the background of his work as we walked around.  I found his painting, The History Hole, very mysterious with many possible interpretations.

Patricia Barry Levy’s work, accomplished through digital collage and printed on canvas, was quite whimsical and evocative.  Two somewhat different approaches are seen in Tethered Depot and Silo #2.

The Tethered Depot

Silo #2

In the smaller back gallery, Chandler Romeo’s beautifully rendered ceramic pieces occupied an entire wall.  They were part of an enormous installation, Urban Abstract Rural Grid, earlier this year at the Museum of Outdoor Arts.  I was glad I’d seen them in the larger context.

Reid Weimer was at Helikon with a mutual friend, Rex Brown, whose gallery/living space, The Pattern Shop, was also open Saturday for a very different exhibit, Rivers Alive, work by Wogo Hollup.  Her paintings in Japanese leaf and ebony pencil on denril paper were beautifully rendered, and shimmered in the changing light.  Inspired by satellite images of rivers, the floor to ceiling length scrolls moved very slightly in small breezes and represented abstractly bodies of water and clouds from various parts of the world.

Clouds Over Estes Park

Detail

East River To Long Island Sound

Last stop for the afternoon was at Plus Gallery.  In the downstairs space, Jenny Morgan, originally from Colorado but now a New York artist, was showing a series of paintings called The Golden Hour.  Mysterious and somewhat mystical, they seemed to use a kind of exterior portraiture to speak of interior spaces.

Psychic Heartbeat

Breakthrough Sharona

Various gallery artist had work in the upstairs space at Plus.  One painting that had me in front of it for some time was work by Xi Zhang.  What held me there was the tension between the foreboding content and the absolute lusciousness of the paint strokes. 

Permanence Within #01-E04

Detail

It was hard to believe that he also had two smaller pieces so different in mood and execution.  I went back and forth several times to convince myself that both were done by the same artist.

The Bath #4

August 20, 2014 San Jose, CA in three parts

Last weekend I was in San Jose, CA to visit friends and attend an opening reception for ITAB:  International TECHstyle Art Biennial in which I had a textile piece.  It also turned out to be a fabulous opportunity to see art.

Part 1- One afternoon my husband and I visited the San Jose Art Museum, a small museum but one which has a very respectable collection of contemporary art.  Upstairs was featured Legacy: The Emily Fisher Landau Collection of representative pieces of American art from the 1960’s onward (no photography permitted) including work by Jasper Johns, Willem deKooning, Ed Ruscha, Barbara Kruger, and Jenny Holzer.  

On the main floor was Initial Public Offering:  New Work fromSJMA’s Permanent Collection, a very exciting show with lots of styles and variety.  Ashutosh Bhardwaj’s enormous oil and acrylic painting, Induced Epidemic, 2007, used contemporary imagery especially about beauty and the cosmetics industry to highlight sociopolitical issues related to consumerism.

Alison Saar’s Coup, 2006, composed of wood, wire, tin and found objects spoke of issues related to growing up and separation of mothers and daughters.  Coup, related to the French couper, meaning “to cut” talks about the need for the daughter to jettison the heavy baggage by cutting off her her hair.

Basing his large acrylic collage on canvas, James Barsness included many cultural and religious references in All Souls Surfs Up Green Thumb Buddha, 2008 to illustrate the Buddhist belief in the duality of good and evil.

Tulip Twins (Triptych), 2005 used a personal folklore vocabulary to show recurrent peasant-like characters that appear in various environments.  With gouache and latex paint on wood panel, Claire Rojas employed a flat and limited palette effectively.

Combining painting, the human body, photography and performance, Huang Yan created photographs of his face painted with traditional Chinese landscapes. Summer, from the series The Four Seasons, 2008, continued his ongoing series, Body Landscapes.

Part 2- International TECHstyle Art Biennial.  The San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles was buzzing on Sunday, August 10 for the opening reception.  Each artist present gave a 2-3 minute talk about inspiration for the work and methods.  I had expected a rather small gallery space and was pleasantly surprised to find the space much larger and the reception very well attended.  The range of work was amazing, everything from 2-D weavings to several very creative interactive pieces.

A floor to ceiling work by Paula Chung, Head MRA, 2014, used fiberglass screening and free motion quilting to reference body imaging as a window into our lives.  Hung out from the wall, this piece cast wonderful shadows behind it.

Detail

I have followed the work of Eszter Bornemisza from Hungary for some time in photographs and was excited to find an example in this show.  Using vilene, wires, plugs, thread, organza, keyboard buttons, wires and paper pulp, she used cast paper and machine sewing to create a very textural surface in Technopolis, 2014, a work inspired by cultural layers found in the earth.

Sometimes simple ingredients produce the most amazing results.  June Lee’s Witness:  And No One Else Was There, 2013, used only plaster, thread and the technique of very intricate and exacting wrapping to rework the theme of hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil to address the propensity of people in a crowd to wait and witness rather than act.

Detail

There were several jacquard-woven tapestries in this exhibit.  I was particularly intrigued with Swan Point, 2013, by Michael Radyk.  This work, digitally designed, used recycled vinyl coated recycled polyester, linen, wool, and rayon flock to produce a very complex monochromatic quadruple cloth weave in which long woven floats were cut and manipulated very effectively.

The work I looked at longest and went back to several times was Chifu Memory, 2014, by French artist Brigitte Amarger.  Using radiographic film (recycled x-rays) which she transformed with laser cutting, burning, engraving and sewing, Amarger  created a textile memory of an old ancient textile grafted onto modern technology.  This ghostly image also threw beautiful shadows on the wall.

Detail

My own entry in this show, First Moment, 2013, was featured in a previous post.

Also at the SJM of Q&T was a three women show, Forming Our Lives.  Christina Velasquez, one of the participants, used humor to address a more serious subject, the expectations put on women in contemporary life.

La Mujer Tiene que Ser Bella, Women Must be Beautiful, 2008

(hair curlers, combs, cosmetics

La Mujer Tiene que Tener Las Medidas Perfectas, Women Must Have Perfect Measurements, 2008

Tape measures

Part 3-  San Jose Downtown Doors (http://sjdowntown.com/downtown_doors/). Walking on the downtown streets of San Jose, you had to notice large poster-size works of art displayed on the doors of various businesses, forming a wonderful outdoor gallery. Basically, these artworks are the result of a competition for high school students.  The winners have their artwork reproduced on vinyl and then a local business sponsors that vinyl image being professionally adhered to a door. The range and sophistication of work was truly impressive and a great way to validate and encourage young artists.  Here is a sampling.

Sierra Larsen, Touching Two Worlds

Yajaira Acosta, Mother Nature

Neni Silva, The Hero Within

Kaila Caballero, See the Truth

Laxmi Korwar, For the Love of It

Did I mention that there was also the San Jose Jazz Festival going on downtown that weekend.? Wish I had taken photos of some of the very colorful attire worn by attendees.  We didn’t have tickets but to the festival but enjoyed the music from the street.