Fall 2011 Exhibitions
2011 Members Exhibition
October 2, 2011- January 7, 2012
Leslie Pontz: Shaping Space
October 2, 2011- January 15, 2012
Ann Tsubota: A Passion for Clay
December 4, 2011 - January 29, 2012
Deconstructing Nature
Chris Ballantyne, Gregory Euclide, Kim Keever, Dean Monogenis, Voshardt / Humphrey
October 2, 2011- January 29, 2012
Ann Tsubota: A Passion for Clay
Ann Tsubota, Rococo, 2000, Raku, 11 1/4 x 6 1/2 inches, Collection of the artist, Photo by Craig Phillips
Ann Tsubota: A Passion for Clay, includes diverse groups of work by this well-known ceramic artist. Ann Tsubota is the Chairperson of the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Raritan Valley Community College, NJ. She is an honored and respected teacher, known for her high standards, and has sent many ceramic artists out into the art world. Tsubota is represented by galleries in New York and New Jersey; her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions from the 1970s to the present day. She holds an M.F.A. from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, where she had the opportunity to study and work with Ka Kwong Hui, an esteemed and innovative ceramic artist.
Ann Tsubota works in several clay materials: raku, stoneware and porcelain, and does low-and high-fire reduction in her studio kiln. A master of ceramic technique, she takes particular interest in investigating surface and glaze possibilities, often using traditional functional vessel forms for inventive and unexpected treatment and motifs. The surface becomes a skin for richly varied drawings, paintings, incision and relief. Tsubota's interests in history, politics and the contemporary world are reflected in the texts and images found on her vessels. Literature and poetry have frequently been inspiration for themes and series. Ann Tsubota's work is informed by her extensive knowledge of the ceramic traditions of many ancient and modern societies. Viewers may recognize this artist's sometimes witty response to venerated forms and shapes, as well as her deeply serious concern with today's issues.
In conjunction with this exhibition, the Museum's education department will offer a workshop titled Form & Surface: Ceramics Workshop with Ann Tsubota. This two-day workshop taught by Ann Tsubota is offered in partnership with Raritan Valley Community College and will take place at RVCC on January 8 from 10 am to 3 pm and on January 15 from 10 am to 1 pm. The focus of the class will be handbuilding and glazing. Tuition is $155 or $135 for museum members (plus $30 clay and firing fee).
Ann Tsubota, Shadow Map: Gagarin, Shepard, Glenn, 2011, Raku, Collection of Eileen Abel and Bill Luyster, Photo by Craig Phillips
2011 Members Exhibition
Amy Becker, Carny Series: Viking, 2008, Archival Pigment Inkjet, 14 x 11 inches, Courtesy of the artist
Craig Matthews, Black & Blonde, 2009, Fiber, 43 x 42 inches, Courtesy of the artist
Edward Evans, Disseminating, 2010, Acrylic on linen, 54 x 68 inches, Courtesy of the artist
Leslie Pontz: Shaping Space
Floating (Basket), 2011, monofilament, silk, thread, iron, 69 1/2x 15 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches, courtesy of the artist
The art of Leslie Pontz clearly transcends the traditional boundaries of fiber art. This artist pursues dichotomies in her sculpture with materials that, by nature, are usually antithetical. Pontz works with crochet and other fiber techniques on silk, monofilament and metal wire. In the artist's own words, she has been intrigued by "elements that are far more exciting existing together than independently." Contrasts of texture and color in environments she has experienced have had a strong impact on her art, as has her awareness of the interaction of light and form in penetrable structures. Bodies of work have thoughtfully investigated these oppositions until they are resolved in multi-dimensional sculptures.
Many of the artist's works are suspended with metal attachments and hooks that allow gravity to shape sack-like containers. Openwork crocheted "sacks" frequently hold objects of contrasting texture, color and density; cores of wood are wrapped in multiple layers of metal wire. The tensile strength of silk and filament evokes a visceral response; we sense the holding power of structures that appear fragile but are surprisingly strong. Some expand gracefully in space while others are shaped by what they contain. Metal attachments appear aged by time and use, but many have been fabricated for specific pieces and their patinas created by the artist.
The body of work in this exhibition reflects a very reasoned, personal approach to color; several sculptures have a pale translucency, a quiet, meditative quality. Pontz uses a slightly coarse silk thread along with colorless monofilament for many of the pieces. No dyes have been used: color on some is introduced by crocheting a polyester thread along with the monofilament. The artist has deliberately used the natural color of silk and linen and the neutral color of filament to focus our response on form.
The title of the exhibition tells us what it is about: space, surrounded by varied hanging and resting shapes that respond to their internal and external environments. We are invited into a gentle, unexpectedly subtle organization of space, shape, weight, and the volume of air contained and displaced as it flows through the work.
Support in part provided by the Bloomingdale's Fund of the Macy's Foundation.
Collapsed Basket 1 (detail), 2010, Monofilament, silk, iron, 13 3/4 x 14 x 4 inches, courtesy of the artist
Seed Pod 2, 2010, Crocheted wire, wood, paint iron, 39 1/2 x 33 1/2 x 18 inches, courtesy of the artist
Deconstructing Nature
Chris Ballantyne, Gregory Euclide, Kim Keever, Dean Monogenis, Voshardt / Humphrey
Gregory Euclide, Capture #1, 2009, Acrylic paint, paper, paint can, pencil, pine needles, moss, sedum, sponge, stone, 11 x 13 x 16 in., Collection of Deborah and Peter Smith
Kim Keever, Summer: Blue, Yellow and Gray, 2004, C-print, 51 1/8 x 68 1/8 in., Edition 1/3, Courtesy Kinz + Tillou Fine Art
Chris Ballantyne, Pool Overgrown, 2010, Acrylic on panel, 36 x 48 in., Courtesy Steven Zevitas Gallery
Deconstructing Nature is a contemporary interpretation of the modern landscape. By examining the essential qualities of nature through an updated lens, new possibilities emerge. The contemporary landscape is less concerned with a strict portrayal of a beach or a mountain and more concerned with a narrative about nature, regardless of the format. Deconstructing Nature features five artists; all with unique points of view on what happens when nature is dissected in order to return it in a different form.
The artists in Deconstructing Nature share an interest in nature, but take distinct approaches to capturing it in their work. Chris Ballantyne fuses nature and suburban development in his paintings, finding unusual ways to make these two adversaries interact gracefully. Gregory Euclide uses landscape as a springboard to ethereal and delicate dioramas that befuddle the mind with their complexity. Kim Keever incorporates cotton, twigs, plaster, rocks and pigment to make environments that are submerged in water and then photographed, revealing fictitious landscapes never before seen. Dean Monogenis updates the traditional landscape by including architectural elements in his paintings that comment on the fast-paced need for urban growth, which often intersects with nature. The videos of Robyn Voshardt and Sven Humphrey provide a new commentary on environmentalism while questioning whether the pursuit of the sublime in nature is still able to elicit a visceral response.
Sometimes the need to know how something works requires that it be taken apart and examined before putting it back together. When it comes to nature and specifically to the landscape in art, the artists in Deconstructing Nature have begun this process. With great deference to the phenomenon that is nature, these artists have reconstructed landscapes in ways that are visually more challenging, as well as more representative of what nature means to them. While their work varies in medium and context, it is linked by familiar content that is made new by the artists' singular perspectives. The artists in Deconstructing Nature have developed their own narratives that bring the viewer to a new place; a place they are unable to find in our natural world.
Summer 2011 Exhibitions
Kiyomi Baird: Spheres
October 2, 2011- November 27, 2011
Up & Coming:
New Printmakers Make their Mark
June 19 - September 18, 2011
Art of Adornment: Studio Jewelry
June 19 - September 18, 2011
Kiyomi Baird: Spheres
Kiyomi Baird, Autumnal, 2011, Mixed media and oil on canvas, 48 x 108 inches (triptych), Courtesy of the artist
Kiyomi Baird uses basic geometric forms to express her perceptions of the fundamental nature of physical matter and spiritual being. These forms, often circles and spheres, are given texture and color to create spaces that seek to reflect the cosmos. Spheres is an artistic manifestation of Baird's inner journey through the vastness that encompasses this physical and spiritual embodiment.
Kiyomi Baird began her interest in the elements of matter after first looking through an electron microscope into the invisible universe of atomic particles. She then combined this scientific interest with spiritual reflection shaped by her Japanese ancestry and Buddhist upbringing to start an artistic process that continues to enlighten her. After living most of her life in the United States and Berlin, Baird moved to Tokyo and found a connection with Japanese culture and aesthetics that she had not previously recognized. This newly found cultural duality created an inner tension that drives her to create visual expressions of harmony and balance.
Autumnal and Renewal are representations of this cultural duality. Autumnal is dark and celestial, an indication of deep space and an enigmatic world. Renewal is refreshing and delivers a sense of regeneration through its varied textures and colors. Together these works form the yin and yang of Kiyomi Baird. They are opposite forces, but when seen together they complement each other and give rise to a more powerful dynamic.
Kiyomi Baird seeks to open the viewer's understanding through her paintings. The themes of harmony and balance graciously interact with the subjects of chaos and struggle creating a context for Baird to transform the viewer's own feelings and insights. Spheres is not just a celestial meditation, it is a personal journey to a meaningful consciousness.
Up & Coming: New Printmakers Make their Mark
Helen Popinchalk, Night Vision, 2009, Silkscreen (hand-cut rubylith stencils) on paper, 20 x 48 inches, Courtesy of the artist
The Hunterdon Art Museum continues its long history of supporting and promoting contemporary printmakers with this second invitational show of prints by MFA candidates and recent graduates. We invited East Coast art schools with MFA printmaking programs to nominate up and coming printmakers, and from these nominees we selected twelve talented artists. Participating schools are: The LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies, Columbia University; University of Massachusetts | Dartmouth; Montclair State University; Pratt Institute; The University of the Arts; University of Pennsylvania; and Virginia Commonwealth University, School of the Arts. Works chosen for the exhibition utilize traditional techniques such as woodcut and silkscreen, as well as current advances in digital technology that create prints. The show includes two- and three-dimensional objects, artist books and mixed media installations that expand the conventional boundaries of printmaking and identify some innovative trends in contemporary art.
If there is a common thread connecting these diverse works it may be ingenuity. Many of the artists look beyond traditional printmaking materials and methods, incorporating other media and processes to create contemporary works of art. From Christi Birchfield's use of flowers as a pigment to Donna Globus' art of storytelling through offset printed sheets and books to Rhys Himsworth's reconfiguration of a cardiograph as a printmaking device; these artists have developed their own unique techniques while maintaining the very ideals of making prints. Evolving technologies let the artists expand their printmaking practice, but their attention to the history of this art form allows for a fluid transformation and rich results.
Some of these artists have transcended a boundary in printmaking by making the act or result of their process interactive. Bonnie Kaye Whitfield's printed letters, left for someone to pick up, result in anonymous engagement. The use of multiple processes is also prevalent amongst these artists as seen in the work of Vaidehi Kinkhabwala who turns the ordinary form of a dress into a multi-layered printmaking experience. By rethinking how to use traditional techniques to create innovative work, these artists have begun the long journey of making a mark.
"Making a mark" is both an activity and an outcome. When we speak of mark making as an artistic endeavor we refer to an essential gesture; for an artist, making a mark is an act of creativity. Additionally, the expression "to make one's mark" means to achieve distinction or make a name for oneself. Both meanings are relevant for the emerging artists in this exhibition. While the mark they will leave on contemporary art is yet to be determined, each has made an indelible mark on this exhibition.
Read this article on nj.com about Up and Coming.
Read this article on mycentraljersey.com about Up and Coming.
This exhibition is funded in part by the International Fine Print Dealers Association.
Mandy Dunn Sampson, Mismemory, 2010, Screenprinted quilt, 44 x 54 inches, Courtesy of the artist
Robert Rhee (in collaboration with Alison Guidry), Stagings of the Mass Dream; By the Lake, 2010, CMYK silkscreen print on paper, 22 x 27 inches, Courtesy of the artists
Susan Dreifuss, Only Exception, 2009, Woodblock print, 24 x 38 inches, Courtesy of the artist
Art of Adornment: Studio Jewelry
Jill Baker Gower, Aphrodisiac Rose Pomander, 2006, Pewter, sterling silver, feather boa, vial of rose oil, Courtesy of the artist
Art of Adornment: Studio Jewelry features the work of thirteen artists who create jewelry that is part of an ongoing trend to marry precious with non-precious materials. Merging the timeless with the fleeting, the precious with the ordinary, their work combines gems and metals with materials found in nature, the environment and industry.
Formally trained in design and fabrication, the artists in this exhibition are grounded in the history of jewelry and its purposes. Their work represents their individual searches for an aesthetic that speaks to their chosen materials and craftsmanship. Tina Rath works with precious gems and fur, materials associated with privilege, but while the gems are stable and everlasting, the fur is fragile. Kiwon Wang mixes ageless pearls with paper, a product prone to aging and fraying. Man-made materials, old and new, get new life in the hands of Susanne Klemm and Jill Baker Gower.
Jewelry has long signaled status and wealth. Traditionally, social value could be attained only if the materials themselves were enduring, making possible heirlooms that passed from generation to generation. Although their appearance and craft could change over time, it was the precious gem or metal that gave it value.
Although mainstream jewelry designers still trade on the notion that 'a diamond is forever', the 20th century saw a shift in this approach. Studio jewelry, influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement, redefined value as resting in the aesthetic and skill of the maker rather than the value of the materials. This shift opened the door to any material that caught the fancy of the artist.
This juxtaposition of precious, long-lasting materials and non-traditional, ephemeral elements may suggest a playful or irreverent critique of our understanding of value, challenging the consumer to reconsider the meaning of jewelry and our understanding of the relationship between value and timelessness. Appearance can be greatly enhanced by beautiful objects and therein, lies the Art of Adornment.
Read this article on mycentraljersey.com about Art of Adornment.
Tina Rath, Untitled, 2009, African blackwood, smoky quartz, mink, paint, white tail deer rosette, sterling silver, Courtesy Sienna Gallery
Kiwon Wang, Erotica P #17, 2009, NY Times, sterling silver, pearl, Kamasutra illustration book, lacquer, Courtesy of the artist, Photo credit: James Beards
Sarah Abramson, Palimpsest 9, 2010, Copper, vitreous enamel, sterling silver, stainless steel, Courtesy Gallery Loupe
Spring 2011 Exhibitions
Edward Fausty:
Next Frontier, The Land and the Night Sky
April 10 - June 12, 2011
Claybodies: Reinterpreting the Figure
February 27 - June 12, 2011
Sarah Stengle: Useless Tools
February 27 - June 12, 2011
Sarah Stengle: Useless Tools
Object to Read Your Letters, 2010, Wool, lampwork glass nipples
While most of us see tools as implements that help us accomplish manual tasks, artist Sarah Stengle transforms them into mysterious objects fraught with psychological tension. Her project, Useless Tools, comprises an artist book and a series of sculptural objects described and illustrated in the book. Formatted like an instruction manual, the book describes various "anxious occasions" and imagines tools to handle them. The "tools" are displayed in cases like artifacts in a natural history museum. While they may resemble hand tools, they could never function as such. Instead they become Surrealist sculptures, inhabiting the realm of the subconscious--the props of dreams and nightmares, or fairy tales gone awry.
Stengle provides tools that reveal the intentions of others, make you invisible or turn you to stone, watch over you, or even restore virginity. The artist is inventive in her use of everyday objects to help solve anxiety, combining such elements as found utensils, tool fragments, animal horns and antlers, stone, wood, metal and wool. Her incorporation of glass taxidermy eyes provides the hyper-vigilance necessary for survival and helps protect against any lurking "evil eye."
Tool for Looking at Dead Dogs, 2009, Wood, glass cat eyes, vintage tool handle, dark green paint
Tool for Existing beyond Paper, 2010, Chrome-plated architectural fitting, glass coyote eyes, machined brass fitting, antique wood handle
For the book, Useless Tools, Stengle employed a "tête-bêche" binding, in which two separate texts are joined together, but inverted head to tail--one beginning at the front of the book, and the other at the back. After writing short descriptive entries on individual tools, the artist collaborated with author Michael Joseph, who is a rare books librarian at Rutgers University. His written responses to Stengle's original entries form the basis of a revised and annotated version of the text, situated at the "back" of the book. The resulting dialogue between Stengle and Joseph is transcendent, moving beyond a discussion of tools.
The true value of these non-functioning tools is their ability to remind us of our actual, if unacknowledged needs. While we may never find ourselves fleeing hunters in the forest or turning to stone, we still face challenges that cause us to crave the appropriate tools. How often have we fantasized about becoming invisible or having eyes in the backs of our heads? Who wouldn't love to reconnect with a lost childhood pet? And what would it mean if we had tools to protect us from evil, or heal our devastating wounds? While arguably worthless as tools, they are meaningful as art objects, helping us address our unspoken fears, longings, and memories. With this provocative work Sarah Stengle demonstrates that useless tools can be powerful objects.
Claybodies: Reinterpreting the Figure
Click here for a cinematic tour of our Claybodies exhibit.
Etta Winigrad, Wolf Cry, 2002, clay, smoked, 23 1/2 x 34 x 10 in.
The extraordinary flourishing of ceramic art today in all its manifestations raises interesting speculation about what has propelled this rejuvenation of an ancient art form. There has never been an actual hiatus in the history and use of clay as art-making material, and the imaging of the body, as old as man's prehistory, has always been replete with references to the physical, spiritual, psychological and iconic significance of the human form. Clay, however, demands direct involvement of the shaper's hands, unlike other modes of sculpture where tools, whether simple or complex, must mediate between the artist and the work. Perhaps in an era defined by technology it is deeply satisfying to be so connected to a material which is essentially earth.
It is reassuring and stimulating to note that the artists in this exhibition create sculpture as variable in concept and process as any other contemporary art form. Claybodies has tried to stay relatively close to the human figure in the art selected. The human body, so mobile in life, becomes immobilized in fired clay as ceramic. Unfired clay, however, malleable and capable of both additive and subtractive manipulation, allows the sculptor to explore infinite variations of form and surface. Unlike other sculptural materials, clay and glazes can be in solid or liquid form, as well as somewhere between, depending on their physical and chemical state. It is the heat of the kiln that ultimately makes them solid and durable.
Rob Kirsch, Nursery 2008, Glazed earthenware, 22 x 13 x 14 in.
Within the thematic parameters of "the figure," the work in Claybodies is individualistic and idiosyncratic. Some are sculptures of entire bodies; others use a part of the body--often, but not inevitably--the head, to essentialize the human presence. Surface textures may be gritty or smooth; some retain the matte, earthen colors of clay while others present colorful glazed surfaces and elaborate detailed imagery. All require extraordinary technical skill and personal vision for the artist to realize his or her response to this complicated body we all share.
Claybodies: Reinterpreting the Figure will explore the diverse ways in which artists interpret the human body in fired clay. Within the thematic parameters of "the figure," the work in Claybodies is individualistic and idiosyncratic. Some are sculptures of entire bodies; others use a part of the body--often, but not inevitably--the head, to essentialize the human presence. The exhibition will show 14 artists whose work ranges from traditional representation to semi-abstract and examines the context, content and personal style of each artist. Artists in the show are Adrian Arleo, Tom Bartel, Paola Borgatta, Bruce Dehnert, Judy Fox, Mary Frank, Sergei Isupov, Robert Kirsch, Judy Moonelis, Mike Prather, Akio Takamori, Viola Frey, Kukuli Velarde, and Etta Winigrad.
Read an article from New Ceramics about Claybodies: Reinterpreting the Figure.
Tom Bartel, Blue Fertility Figure, 2010, ceramic, 20 x 12 x 10 in.
Bruce Dehnert, Ishmael Sent Away, 2010, earthenware, steel, glazes, sandblasted, 72 x 37 x 12 in.
Winter 2011 Exhibitions
Marzie Nejad: Mindscapes
January 23 - April 3, 2011
Marzie Nejad: Mindscapes
A Pale Blue Day, 2007, oil on canvas, 24" x 24"
Flying Cactus, 1989, oil on canvas, 36" x 36"
To the Meadow, 2009, oil on canvas, 36" x 48"
Marzie Nejad's "mindscapes" are mysterious paintings that illustrate the land-scape of the imagination. The unexpected and seemingly impossible scenes that unfold in these paintings require the viewer to suspend reality and enter the irrational world of dreams. Here, a flowering cactus flies like a rocket, a road cascades from a woman's knitting needles, a Tehran doorway is transported to the Great Wall of China, an island floats in the sky.
Much of Nejad's striking imagery emerges from her unconscious mind during early morning reveries. These waking dreams--a mix of memories, fantasies, wishes and fears--provide the subject matter for her paintings. Like a photographer traversing the landscape of the subconscious, she takes snap-shots of the scenes she imagines and records them on canvas. Nejad's mind-scapes depict beautiful yet haunting places that often seem remote or inaccessible. A palpable sense of longing pervades many of the paintings, their spaces inhabited by solitary figures.
A self-taught artist who paints intuitively, Nejad was born and raised in Iran. Although she is a natural storyteller with a compelling story of her own, she does not directly recount it in her paintings. Instead, she creates enigmatic scenes and fragments of stories that are evocative rather than explicit. Combining aspects of Symbolism and Surrealism, her paintings express universal ideas filtered through her own imagination and artistic vision.
While cultural signs and symbols vary, the search for meaning is an essential human pursuit. The artist--who has always had a strong connection to mysticism--has been a lifelong seeker of beauty and truth, spiritually as well as artistically. Perhaps that is why the mindscapes of Marzie Nejad fascinate the eye while speaking the language of the soul.
Fall Exhibitions 2010
Pamela Becker: Patterns and Constructs
October 3 - January 16, 2011
Urmila Mohan: Moving Home
October 3 - December 5, 2010
Click here to learn more
2010 Members Exhibition
October 3, 2010 - January 9, 2011
Fire Works
October 3, 2010 - February 13, 2011
John Ripton
December 12, 2010 - February 13, 2011
Edward Fausty: Next Frontier, The Land and the Night Sky
Shack, Mt. Wilson Astronomical Observatory, CA, 2010
Next Frontier: The Land and the Night Sky is an homage to Edward Fausty's lifelong relationship with the stars. As a child, Fausty was an avid stargazer who learned to create photographs through his telescope. However, it was not until 2008 that, through a fusion of technological advancements in the world of digital cameras and a continued relationship with the night, Fausty discovered that he could convey what the night sky looked and felt like to him, in photographic form.
Edward Fausty shot this series of photographs in the darkness of night, but light is actually why he takes pictures. "If the light isn't beautiful, I don't see a picture," Fausty states. Without ever using his own light source, he relies on ambient light or existing artificial light from nearby streets or structures to create these vibrant and serene portraits of the night sky and its surrounding elements.
In Shack, Mt. Wilson Astronomical Observatory, CA, Fausty captures an otherworldly vision of beauty. A small shack sits at the forefront of a vast and seemingly never-ending universe; the last bastion to view eternity. In Solar telescope at Mt. Wilson Observatory, CA, only a small structure intercepts our view of the entire sky. This one inanimate object, however, creates a galactic effect; a new planet, lonely in the vastness of space. The land and the night sky work in unison for Fausty to create the next frontier - a complex amalgamation of actuality and fantasy, transfixed simultaneously with nature and architecture.
Tree Figure, Bedford, NY, 2008
Nature and architecture serve as the supporting cast for the night sky. Hills, trees and lawns provide a horizon line traversing the sky, letting its stars take over the picture's apex. Residential buildings represent a feeling of home, while industrial structures are visions of the future. Fausty wonders if we will colonize space in the same way we have colonized Earth.
Edward Fausty sees us as small parts of a very large unknown, a small island in a great sea. A subtle gaze into space serves as a reminder that we are just a miniscule part of the universe. His photographs take the loneliest hours of the night and transform them into supernatural environments, which make us wonder what is beyond the next frontier - what is beyond the land and the night sky.
Edward Fausty received his BFA from Cooper Union School of Art in New York, NY and his MFA from Yale School of Art in New Haven, CT. He lives and works in Union City, NJ.
Solar telescope at Mt. Wilson Observatory, CA, 2010
John Ripton
Cave Painting, Chelsea, 2010, Inkjet print on archival paper, 16 X 12 inches
Paris in SoHo, SoHo, 2008, Inkjet print on archival paper, 16 X 12 inches
Art detritus is urban street art that is both intentional and unintentional, emerging from the interplay of largely anonymous artists, vandals, public officials, entrepreneurs, local weather, and neglect. A disintegrating wall, a foreclosed property, a plywood construction fence, a sidewalk, an old door, a street sign, trashcan, or unclean window becomes canvas on which layers of personal messages and public notices, artistic design, vandalism, commercial icons, random stickers, and other elements add to the ongoing history of dilapidation and gentrification, destruction and construction of urban space and culture.
In the interplay of all these elements, including weather conditions and the state of maintenance of the physical space, a complex creative process evolves. The figurative deteriorates into the abstract and the abstract materializes into the figurative. The singular artistic design becomes politicized by elements subsequently added. Commercial symbols become highly ironic and complex. Public street signs and eviction notices become purveyors of anarchic messages. Scratches and reflections on a dirty window become modern art.
In my photographs I try to capture the essence of the artistic serendipity and complexity of art detritus. I have given the name "detritus" to this art form not in the sense that the term often denotes culturally but in the biological meaning of detritus as something wearing away or disintegrating, like desiccated leaves at the end of summer, that become fertile soil for new growth and inspiration.
John Ripton
Pamela Becker: Patterns and Constructs
Tan & black, 2000, linen thread, reed
A deep autumnal tone from the series A year on the river, 2005, fabric, acrylic paint, ribbon, linen & cotton thread
The art of Pamela Becker is imbued with a passion for pattern and structure. This exhibition includes selections from a body of textile and fiber arts spanning several decades and several mediums.
Pamela Becker's art is inspired by landscapes that have been part of her life. The natural world and the built environment are alluded to in color references, patterns of motifs, and the materials the artist employs. A Year on the river documents an imaginary trip on a mythical river to its confluence with the sea. The panels are examples of Becker's unique, ingenious engineering of cloth structures.
These fabric constructs speak to innate properties of cloth. Their layers are designed to fall open and drape slightly when unfolded and hung. Raw edges reference the woven structure of textile. Repeated motifs, done by hand, are subtly varied. A surprise is to realize that Becker's patterned, painted fabric constructs exemplify venerable traditions of domestic handwork: sewing, embroidery, piecing and appliqué.
Concurrent with work in fabric, Pamela Becker has created a series of baskets using the wrapped coil technique. In this ancient basket-making color and design are built into the basket form as it grows. The work can be slow and demanding, requiring patience and artistry. The titles of some baskets remind us that they are responses to colors and stimuli of places known to the artist. The artist considers the baskets as boundaries of form and color separating inner and outer space.
Hildreth York, Curator
Fire Works
L. C. Armstrong, Davide Cantoni, Pritika Chowdhry, Jim Dingilian, Rosemarie Fiore, Abby Leigh, Karen Margolis, Dana Melamed, Jihyun Park, Rasika Reddy, Donna Ruff, and Rob Tarbell
Jim Dingilian, Lowland, 2010, smoke inside empty glass bottle, 7 7/8 x 3 3/4 x 1 5/8 inches, Courtesy of McKenzie Fine Art
The thirteen artists in Fire Works harness the potentially destructive power of fire to create works of great beauty and intensity. Some of them use fire as a subtractive force, burning through paper or objects, creating by erasure. Others use fire to alter materials--melting, fusing or making indelible marks. Still others capture smoke on paper, metal or glass, allowing the carbon to mark the surfaces directly. Employing candles, blowtorches, wood-burning tools, bomb fuses, incense sticks, fire, soldering irons, sunlight, and even fireworks as tools and methods for making art, these artists strike a delicate balance between risk and control, destruction and creation. The results, while often surprising, are always impressive.
There is precedence for the use of fire in art, with a handful of 20th century avant-garde artists exploring unorthodox methods. Wolfgang Paalen was a Surrealist who developed a technique for painting with smoke known as fumage. Alberto Burri, a self-taught Italian artist, worked with a variety of non-traditional materials and began to burn his wood and burlap "paintings" in the 1950s, calling the technique combustione. By the late 1950s French artist Yves Klein was making "Fire Paintings" by aiming a flame-thrower at composition boards. Like the artists in Fire Works, they were attracted by the spontaneous element of chance, discovering a dynamic tension in the fine line between chaos and control.
Judy Chicago experimented in the late 1960s with smoke and fireworks for large-scale outdoor performance pieces she called Atmospheres. Ana Mendieta's transitory Silueta series from the 1970s often involved the ritualistic use of fire as a source of exorcism or purification. For John Baldessari's seminal Cremation Project of 1970, the artist cremated nearly all the paintings he had created between 1953 and 1966 and baked cookies with some of the ashes. These artists all recognized the inherent performance aspect of working with fire--an idea that influenced such subsequent developments as performance art, happenings and conceptual art. Performance is an implicit element for all of the works in this exhibition; several of the artists document their activities with photography and video.
Of the four elements--fire, water, earth and air--fire is the only one that is always actively transformative. Unchecked, fire indiscriminately consumes, leaving only ashes in its wake. Yet while burning and scorching can cause indelible scars, a wisp of disappearing smoke is perhaps the ultimate symbol of ephemerality. The artists of Fire Works explore this dichotomy between the permanent and the transient, the material and the immaterial, and in the process create compelling works of art.
Karen Margolis, Too close to..., watercolor, gouache, graphite, map fragments, thread on handmade Abaca paper, 14 x 11 inches (each)
Jihyun Park, Nam Dae Mun, 2010, Burned incense holes on rice paper mounted on scroll, 56 x 81 in image, 84 x 81 in scroll, Courtesy of Gana Art, New York
Urmila Mohan: Moving Home
Moving Home, Urmila Mohan's installation for the Hunterdon Art Museum, explores her ongoing interest in the relationship between identity and material culture. Mohan takes the ubiquitous Styrofoam packing peanut as a starting point for the exhibition and uses it as a central motif to provide both imagery and meaning. By fashioning packing peanuts out of clay, a breakable material, she subverts their intended usefulness and makes them symbols of fragility.
Working at The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, Mohan also created fabrics and wallpaper that incorporate the image of the packing peanut into a camouflage pattern. She uses these materials to transform the gallery into a domestic space. A matching "traveler's suit" hangs in the room, suggesting the missing human presence that is required to complete the idea of home.
Upholstery, curtains, wallpaper, and clothing offer protection to the furniture, windows, walls and people they cover; they can also hide or obscure identity or express personal style. In a way they function like a second skin. Ironically, while these textiles metaphorically "wrap" objects and bodies in packing peanuts, they are ultimately no more effective a protection than Mohan's ceramic packing peanuts, further underscoring the fragility of people and their possessions.
The meaning of the word "home" is heavily weighted, and highly personal. When we refer to "home" we often mean our place of origin, yet we also use the same word to describe the place where we reside. The objects we choose to decorate and fill our homes connect us to our memories, ideas and yearnings for home. Material culture not only signifies personal identity, it also provides valuable links to a larger collective experience, even when those links are broken.
What happens when we leave one place for another? How do we create a home? What do the things we take with us, and the things we leave behind reveal about us? And while we take precautions with our breakable possessions, can we ever really protect ourselves? In Moving Home, Urmila Mohan has created a safe haven in which to ponder these questions.
Mary Birmingham
Summer Exhibitions 2010
Botanica
May 23, 2010 - September 12, 2010
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Katherine Mangiardi: Reflected Absence
May 23, 2010 - September 12, 2010
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Botanica
Portia Munson, Balloon Gooseneck, 2003, pigmented ink on rag paper, 60 x 44 inches, courtesy of PPOW Gallery
Linda Brooks Hirschman, Peony "tooth fairy", felt, yarn, wire, polymer clay, wet felted, wrapped, hand sewn, 23 x 23 x 23 inches, courtesy of the artist
Cassandra C. Jones, Rara Avis Wallpaper #2, 2007, wallpapered panel, 53 x 53 inches, courtesy of Baer Ridgway Exhibitions, San Francisco (detail)
Asuka Hishiki, Ex-model -A Portrait of heirloom tomato, watercolor on paper, 12 x 12 inches, courtesy of the artist
Katherine Mangiardi: Reflected Absence
Katherine Mangiardi, Emily, 2010, C-print
Katherine Mangiardi, Mary, 2010, C-print
Katherine Mangiardi, Sarah, 2010, C-print
Katherine Mangiardi: Reflected Absence
http://vimeo.com/14737409
Spring Exhibitions 2010
Upcycling Sound:
Interactive Sculpture by Gary DiBenedetto
February 7, 2010 - May 16, 2010
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Bette Blank: Icons and True Confessions
March 28 , 2010 - May 16, 2010
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The Marvelous Art of Jack Kirby
March 28 , 2010 - May 16, 2010
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The Marvelous Art of Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby (1917-1994) is among the greatest of comic book artists, his career of nearly six decades spanning the history of the genre. Born Jacob Kurtzberg, he was raised on Manhattan's lower east side, and later changed his name to Jack Kirby. A prolific and driven artist, Kirby worked for various comic book publishers, most notably Marvel and DC Comics, and had a part in creating a host of memorable characters. Working with Joe Simon during the 1940s he developed romance comics and originated Captain America; his later collaboration with Stan Lee produced the Fantastic Four, Thor, the Incredible Hulk, X-Men, and the Silver Surfer, among others. Many of his creations are beloved heroes who remain popular culture icons.
The Marvelous Art of Jack Kirby presents original pre-press drawings from a sampling of Kirby's many publications. These drawings, originally rendered in pencil by Jack Kirby, were inked and lettered by other artists before publication. Colorists added hand coloring to photocopies of the drawings in preparation for printing.
Late in his career, Kirby was so revered by his peers that other artists were sometimes reluctant to ink over his drawings. The latest work in the exhibition, DC Comics Presents, #84, p. 15, 1985, is an example that also offers insight into the production process. In this case the inker placed the original drawing on a light box and traced over the pencil lines on a separate sheet of paper. Kirby's original drawing is preserved unaltered on the left, with the new inked and lettered version on the right.
Kirby's versatility and skill enabled him to create a broad range of comics, from romance, western, war, and crime to superheroes and villains. A brilliant and original storyteller, Jack Kirby's imaginative vision and innovative style earned him the designation, "King of the Comics."
Bette Blank: Icons, Idols and True Confessions
Sushi Palace II, 2007, oil on linen
Bette Blank's lively and often humorous work reflects her unique vision. Drawing images and inspiration from popular culture and everyday life, the artist invites viewers to see the world through her eyes. She melds iconic figures and objects with the people, places and things she observes in her own life, integrating the famous with the familiar. In Marilyn Refrigerator the movie star's photograph is stuck to the door of the artist's refrigerator, which is filled to the brim with popular brands of food; this painting exemplifies her uncanny ability to personalize popular culture.
Blank has a limitless imagination. She makes it seem completely plausible that Queen Elizabeth and Condoleezza Rice would shop for the perfect shoe in a suburban Bonwit Teller, or that Frida Kahlo would eat at Blank's favorite sushi restaurant. In the world that her paintings depict, established icons and idols all seem friendlier, even vulnerable, and so much more approachable. We can imagine ourselves having a conversation with Blank's Marilyn Monroe, Sigmund Freud or Prince Charles because she makes them convincingly human--one of "us" instead of "them."
Consumer products like automobiles, kitchen appliances, clothing, shoes, drugs and cosmetics provide equally worthy subjects for Bette Blank. She enshrines a vintage radio by painting its portrait in Radio (Frequency Modulation). Blank has recently been fabricating three-dimensional versions of these objects, such as the contents of her medicine chest. (Look closely and you may find Freud's Prozac hidden among Blank's own prescriptions and cosmetics.) A rhinestone-encrusted skull pays a tongue-in-cheek homage to the artist, Damien Hirst.
A pink Cadillac is both a well-known symbol of luxury and the ultimate "girl" car, while a Harley-Davidson motorcycle embodies speed, risk, and the open road and is the definitive macho machine. Blank associates both icons with popular songs, incorporating the lyrics of "Pink Cadillac" and "Born To Be Wild" into the backgrounds of the respective paintings. This inventive use of words lends a fresh perspective to her recognizable subject matter. Sigmund Freud is surrounded by his theories, Marilyn Monroe sings "Happy Birthday, Mr. President," and Rocket Man includes facts about the moon, as well as lines from popular songs and nursery rhymes.
As a visual artist Bette Blank is consistently attracted by color and repetition, and she uses these qualities to animate her paintings. Additionally, she seeks emotional resonance with her subjects, forging personal connections with them. This emotional connectivity further enlivens her work and creates powerful new connections with her viewers.
Pink Cadillac, 2008, Private Collection, Wyoming
Marilyn, 2010, Courtesy of Adam Baumgold Gallery
Shoe Salon, 2006, Courtesy of Adam Baumgold Gallery
San Remo, Day, 2006, oil on linen
Winter 2009 Exhibitions
Knitted, Knotted, Netted
October 11, 2009 - January 24, 2010
Supported by The Coby Foundation, Ltd.
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2009 Members Exhibition
October 11, 2009 - January 25, 2010
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Michelle Loughlin: Water falls.
November 29, 2009 - January 24, 2010
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The Influence of a Teacher
Four Artists who Studied with Toshiko Takaezu
Bill Baumbach, Don Fletcher, Dan Massad & John Mosler
December 6, 2009 - March 21, 2010
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Hanna Von Goeler:
The Currency of an Altered State
This exhibition is funded in part by a grant from
The Bloomingdale's Fund of the Macy's Foundation.
February 7, 2010 - March 21, 2010
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Hanna Von Goeler: The Currency of an Altered State
This exhibition is funded in part by a grant from The Bloomingdale's Fund of the Macy's Foundation.
In this site-specific installation Hanna von Goeler has used simple objects to explore complex questions about currency. Defined as a circulating medium of exchange, currency flows and circulates like water. Currency is all about exchange--of ideas, ethics, and culture, as well as goods and services. As an artist, von Goeler's medium of exchange--her currency--is drawing and painting, as well as ideas. Her ongoing series of small paintings on one-dollar bills addresses this concept in provocative ways. She explains, "I have been making my own currency for more than a decade and a half, chronicling not only my relationship and struggle with money, but exploring ethical, political, and aesthetic questions surrounding currency."
Von Goeler has placed several hundred of these altered bills around the gallery walls, arranged in a pattern that suggests the flow of a river current. Because the bills were created over an extended period, they also form a kind of timeline, highlighting personal moments, as well as economic trends and political events including the recently altered state of our global economy.
At the center of the exhibition is a 13-foot canoe that von Goeler covered with beads, transforming it into a totemic object that "floats" through the River Gallery. The canoe references the Museum's site on the south branch of the Raritan River, implying a connection to the area's early Native American inhabitants who might have traveled by canoe and used beads for trade. Von Goeler sees the Museum's location as a constantly evolving site, layered in its own history and existing in an altered state. It has been a point of agricultural, industrial and most recently, cultural exchange, in its metamorphosis from mill to museum.
Upcycling Sound: Interactive Sculpture by Gary DiBenedetto
Work Bench Drills and Wheel, 2009, found objects, wood, brass, steel, audio technology
Gary DiBenedetto is an electro-acoustic composer and sculptor who specializes in interactive multi-media installations. DiBenedetto combines such seemingly disparate elements as antique tool and machine parts with computerized audio components to create sound-generating sculptures. Blending recycled found objects with cutting-edge audio technology, he builds a virtual bridge between the past and the present.
The sculptures in this exhibition have moving components that can be manipulated to produce sound. These manually driven sound generators function as "instruments" that can be "played" by museum visitors. Digital audio processing amplifies the sound, and in some cases distorts it. The resulting sounds--some ambient, and some audible through speakers or individual headphones--transform the gallery into a multi-layered acoustic environment. As spectators explore and operate these sculptures, they participate in a communal orchestration of electro-acoustic music.
Some of DiBenedetto's sculptures are simply repurposed objects--an antique pinball machine or a wooden clothes wringer--that have been wired for sound. Others incorporate such elements as Victorian buttons and marbles, glass bottles and antique bells that move and collide to generate sounds. DiBenedetto also uses antique domestic tools and machines like a clothes agitator, cherry-stoner, apple-peeler and several butter churns to make interesting composite works. He constructed a workbench with five separate sound-producing stations. Many of the sculptures utilize wheels, pulleys, spools and gears that spin, their rhythmic circular motion creating not only sound, but also a graceful geometry of form.
The word "upcycling" was coined by William McDonaugh and Michael Braugart in their book on ecologically intelligent design, Cradle to Cradle. Simply put, upcycling is the practice of taking something that is disposable and transforming it into something of greater use and value. In this exhibition DiBenedetto has cobbled together a multi-layered visual patchwork of objects that also functions as a sonic collage. Collecting the ordinary noises made by ordinary objects, he transforms them into electro-acoustic music--a true upcycling of sound.
Fifteen Words a Minute, 2007, found objects, wood, steel, audio technology
Around and Around She Goes, Where She Stops Nobody Knows, 2007, found objects, wood, steel, audio technology
Michelle Loughlin: Water falls.
Water falls. is a site-specific interactive installation. Growing up in New Jersey, Loughlin has been a frequent visitor to Clinton, drawn in part by her fascination with the 200-foot long waterfall next to the Museum. Inspired by this and other waterfalls, she made gestural drawings that she translated into three-dimensional knitted forms using silver synthetic fibers and an industrial knitting machine. Stitched together, these cascading forms transform the inside of the Museum's River Gallery and mimic the action of the water outside.
With this project, Loughlin aims to probe an iconic image -- one associated with the unspoiled and pristine aspects of Nature-and present a more honest portrayal. By stitching a variety of found objects into the flowing forms of Water falls.--water bottles, latex gloves, coffee cup lids--she references the detritus that is an all too familiar element of most natural settings.
Her purposeful choice of a synthetic material to replicate the "natural" beauty of the waterfall further highlights the dichotomy between the artificial and the natural. Even the most remote and "unspoiled" places reveal the presence of Man; as Loughlin aptly points out, the man-made and the natural are no longer separate.
The Influence of a Teacher
Four Artists who Studied with Toshiko Takaezu
Bill Baumbach, Don Fletcher, Dan Massad, & John Mosler
Bill Baumbach, La Cape, 2008, stoneware, 53 x 15 x 14 in.
The Influence of a Teacher: Four Artists who Studied with Toshiko Takaezu includes work from four of Toshiko Takaezu's former Princeton University students, Bill Baumbach, Don Fletcher, Dan Massad, and John Mosler. In the decades since they graduated from Princeton, all four have remained close to Toshiko and have made art at her home and her studio in Quakertown, New Jersey. As curator, Toshiko Takaezu selected the work for this exhibition.
Bill Baumbach is a sculptor who creates totemic forms. His glazes wash over each piece and produce veiled layers that bring to mind landscapes and Abstract Expressionism. Don Fletcher's sculptures recall Neolithic monuments. His vertical and disc-shaped clay forms with earth-colored glazes have surfaces that are notched or marked, perhaps suggesting objects or rituals from some distant time. Dan Massad works in pastel. His meticulously detailed drawings have sometimes focused on Toshiko's bowls, her front steps or garden. John Mosler's interest in the human figure is the starting point for sculptures that capture movement in their curved planes. While these sculptures stand alone, he views them as maquettes for large-scale pieces.
As one of the most influential ceramic artists of the twentieth century, Toshiko Takaezu has many legacies. Her signature work, the closed form, brought ceramics from the world of utilitarian vessels into the realm of sculpture. Her art is in the collections of major museums, and on any given day, visitors to museums throughout the world, have the good fortune of seeing her beautifully glazed ceramic work. She has exhibited widely, has been the subject of numerous solo shows, and has received honors that include the Gold Medal Award from the American Craft Council and honorary doctorates from universities, including Princeton. This exhibition; however, gives the viewer a glimpse of a more private legacy, the legacy of a teacher.
John Mosler, Oya, 2009, stoneware, 36 1/2 x 18 1/2 x 12 1/2 in.
Don Fletcher, Untitled, 2009, stoneware, 14 x 14 x 6 in.
Dan Massad, Study for Leal Souvenir, 2001, pastel on paper, 14 1/4 x 13 1/4 in.
Fall 2009 Exhibitions
Holli Schorno: Collecting Samples
October 11 - November 29, 2009
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Laura McClanahan: Planktonic Constructs
Member Highlight
October 11 - November 22, 2009
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Holli Schorno: Collecting Samples
Hideout, 2008, Book cuttings on rag paper, 23" x 15"
Holli Schorno assembles innovative collages with book cuttings. Using fragments from discarded textbooks, instructional manuals, topographical maps, and scientific journals, she constructs fantastical objects that sprawl over landscapes or float through space. Varying the scale of the works, the artist offers both expansive and intimate views of the worlds she creates.
January 15, 2018, 2009, Book cuttings on paper, 6" X 17"
Signal Hill, 2008, Book cuttings on paper, 80" x 60"
Knitted, Knotted, Netted
Karen Ciaramella, Abigail Doan, Pat Hickman, Kazue Honma, Ed Bing Lee, Norma Minkowitz, Ruth Marshall, Leslie Pontz, Ann Coddington Rast, Hisako Sekijima, Noriko Takamiya, and Carol Westfall
Abigail Doan, Knitted Flotsam 01, 2009, Crocheted, twined, handspun and recycled fiber, string, balloon, paper, 12" x 7" x 6", courtesy of the artist
Supported by The Coby Foundation, Ltd.
Knitted, Knotted, Netted provides an opportunity to sample some recent art made with knitting, knotting and netting. These techniques with ancient lineages have had a resurgence in the art world through the creativity and ingenuity of contemporary artists. Each of these methods involves the looping of a thread or cord; this differentiates them from braiding and weaving, in which elements may interlace but not necessarily loop through each other.
Two-and three-dimensional artworks use not only plant and animal materials but also industrial and synthetic materials, creating looped structures never envisioned in earlier contexts. Such work is innovative and surprising, inspiring to practitioners of textile and fiber arts and intriguing to a broader audience. Among the artists in this exhibition are several celebrated practitioners whose work explores the fluid boundary between the traditionally defined categories of "art" and "craft."
Artists: Karen Ciaramella, Abigail Doan, Pat Hickman, Kazue Honma, Ed Bing Lee, Norma Minkowitz, Ruth Marshall, Leslie Pontz, Ann Coddington Rast, Hisako Sekijima, Noriko Takamiya, and Carol Westfall
Read what the New York Times has to say about Knitted, Knotted, Netted.
Pat Hickman, Vesicle, 1999, Gut (hog casings), 29" x 13" x 10", Courtesy of the artists
Ruth Marshall, Ivy the Snow Leopard, 2006, Yarn, glass eyes, tapestry canvas, metal grommets, nails, bamboo frame, 87 ½" x 66" (frame variable), Courtesy of Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery
Leslie Pontz, Cactus Flower #1, 2006, Crocheted wire, thread, iron, 102" x 24" x 12", Courtesy of the artist and Snyderman-Works Galleries
2009 Members Exhibition
Kiyomi Baird, Berendina Buist, Andrew Dalpe, Joann Doneen, Edward Evans, Brian Goings, Nikolai Houston, E. Jan Kounitz, Catherine LeCleire, Vikki Michalios, Urmila Mohan, Pat Feeney Murrell, Mark Sharrock, Laurinda Stockwell, Shirley Supp, Mallory Weston, Kimberly Witham, and Katherine Yvinskas
Berendina Buist, Revenge is wrong: eye for a tooth, 2009, Acrylic, wood, plastic eye, 1 1/2" x 1 1/2"
All members of the Hunterdon Art Museum are invited each year to submit work to our Members Exhibition. This year's juror was Ann Aptaker, Curator of Exhibitions at the Morris Museum.
Mallory Weston, Survival Bag, 2008, Brass, sterling silver, cotton, thread, 11" x 8" x 1 1/2"
Urmila Mohan, Apotheosis, 2008, Clay, paint, found objects, 72" x 18" x 18"
Laura McClanahan: Planktonic Constructs
Laura McClanahan, Haematococcus Pluvialis, 2008, color photogram, 12" x 12"
Laura McClanahan: Planktonic Constructs is the Museum's first Member Highlight Exhibition. This solo show is awarded to an artist selected from the Annual Members Exhibition.
Planktonic Constructs features color photograms and video abstractions inspired by different species of plankton. Using her darkroom enlarger as a microscope, and glass objects to represent microorganisms, the artist creates pictures that resemble various protists, plankton, diatoms and jellyfish. She invites the viewer into a constructed world entirely of her own making that convincingly replicates a scientific investigation. Two intriguing videos transform live jellyfish into a mesmerizing kaleidoscopic panorama. These works reflect McClanahan's interest in probing life's origins. The ambiguity of her mysterious forms challenges us to ponder similar questions.
Laura McClanahan, Linuche Unguiculata, 2008, color photogram, 12" x 12"
Laura McClanahan, Solenosphaera Familiaris, 2009, color photogram, 12" x 12"
Summer 2009 Exhibitions
Up and Coming:
New Printmakers Make Their Mark
June 14, 2009 - September 13, 2009
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Marion Held: Sculpture
June 28, 2009 - September 13, 2009
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Click here to read the New York Times review of the Marion Held exhibition.
Barbara Schulman: Fiber Art
June 28, 2009 - September 13, 2009
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Up and Coming: New Printmakers Make Their Mark
Ivanco Talevski, Self Portrait, 2009, Etching, drypoint
The Hunterdon Art Museum continues its long history of supporting and promoting contemporary printmakers with this invitational show of prints by MFA candidates and recent graduates. We invited eleven East Coast art schools to nominate up and coming printmakers, and from these nominees we selected twenty-two talented artists. Participating schools are: The LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies, Columbia University; Cornell University, College of Architecture, Art & Planning; Hunter College of the City University of New York; Pratt Institute; Rhode Island School of Design; Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey; Syracuse University; Tyler School of Art; The University of the Arts; University of Pennsylvania; and Virginia Commonwealth University, School of the Arts. Works chosen for the exhibition utilize traditional techniques such as etching, woodcut, silkscreen and lithography, as well as current advances in digital technology. The show includes two- and three-dimensional objects, handmade paper, artist books, and mixed media installations that expand the conventional boundaries of printmaking, and identify innovative trends in contemporary art.
Click here to read the New York Times' review of Up and Coming : New Printmakers Make Their Mark
Andy Kozlowski, The Ambassador (Is There Anyone Else Out Here?), 2008, Serigraph
Noah Breuer, Superior Airpower Pinwheel 3, 2009, Lithograph, silkscreen and collage on board see it in motion!
Marion Held: Sculpture
Material Traces, 2008
Working in disparate materials such as rubber, clay, metal, and resin, as well as found objects, the core of Marion Held's work has remained remarkably consistent. It references the passage of time, with skeletal structures reminiscent of archeological sites suggesting the distant past. Worn childhood furniture and objects from contemporary life evoke the more immediate past.
Whether she uses actual objects or illumination and shadow as expressive vehicles, mystery permeates Ms. Held's work. Often elegiac in tone, it suggests memory and loss, as well as fertility.
Click here to read the New York Times' review of Marion Held: Material Traces.
Material Traces, 2008, detail
Material Traces, 2008
Barbara Schulman: Fiber Art
Barbara Schulman creates both two- and three-dimensional works of art that surprise the viewer with their inclusions of unusual content. Although a weaver for many years, Schulman turned to techniques and materials that allowed more personal freedom of expression. However, her love of pattern and structure, key components of weaving, continue to influence her work. Along with hand and machine embroidery, this artist also uses credit card fragments, commercial fabric labels, embroidered patches and deconstructed text. Schulman's work in unexpected materials may sometimes be construed as commentary on society's consumerism.
Spring 2009 Exhibitions
Phyllis Carlin
April 5, 2009 - June 21, 2009
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Valeri Larko: Urban Landscapes
April 5, 2009 - June 21, 2009
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Cutters
February 8, 2009 - June 7, 2009
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Winter 2009 Exhibitions
Chotsani Elaine Dean
February 8, 2009 - March 29, 2009
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Amy Wilson:
"There are always such beautiful things..."
January 10 - March 29, 2009
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2008 Fall Exhibitions
Material Color
October 5, 2008 - January 31, 2009
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Walter Chandoha:1940's New York
November 23, 2008 - January 31, 2009
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Hank Murta Adams: Sculpture
October 5, 2008 - January 4, 2009
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Members Exhibition
October 5, 2008 - January 4, 2009
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Curt Ikens: A New Season
October 5, 2008 - November 16, 2008
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Summer 2008 Exhibitions
| The 52nd Annual National Juried Print Exhibition 6/22 - 9/7/08 Learn more about this exhibition |
| The House That Sprawl Built 6/22 - 9/7/08 Learn more about this exhibition |
| Lisa Dahl: No Place Like Home 6/22 - 9/7/08 Learn more about this exhibition |
Faces and Figures: People form the Permanent Collection 6/22 - 9/7/08 Learn more about this exhibition |
Phyllis Carlin
In the 1980s, after decades of working as a scenic designer, Phyllis Carlin made a bold decision. She noted, "Finally I decided to take the risk of giving up work... to concentrate all my energy on being an artist. That was an enormous decision for me to make ....But it is something I know I just have to do, something I look forward to doing every day..."
As a scenic designer, Carlin had been one of a few women and the youngest person to pass the exam for entry into the United Scenic Artists Union. She had worked at the Metropolitan Opera, at TV studios, and for films. Annie Hall, The Turning Point, Matilda, and The Verdict are some of the films for which she had designed and painted scenery.
Transitioning from scenic designer to artist, Carlin compiled a list of art and artists that gave her "courage" and "trigger(ed) something inside". The list included ancient Egyptian figures, a Greek kouros, Giotto, Joseph Cornell, Ida Applebroog, and others. The list is wide ranging, reflecting her interests in historic and contemporary art. These sources have influenced her work throughout her career.
The current exhibition includes paintings, ceramics and mixed media pieces from the 1980s through 2008.
Valeri Larko: Urban Landscapes
Valeri Larko's urban landscape paintings reflect her ongoing fascination with abandoned spaces and overlooked areas on the fringes of the city. Through her investigation of this subject matter, the artist explores the effects man has on the environment. Often juxtaposing the pastoral with the industrial, Larko finds both beauty and pathos at the intersection of urban culture and nature.
A native and long-time resident of New Jersey, Larko has deep personal and professional roots in the state. While attending art school in New Jersey she began painting plein air landscapes and soon turned to the industrial settings in and around the city for her subject matter. She worked outdoors, experimenting with panoramic views of industrial parks and close up "portraits" of tanks and machinery. The artist's early encounters with New Jersey's urban landscape solidified a relationship with this subject matter and sparked ideas that continue to inspire her. Relocating to New Rochelle, NY several years ago expanded her geographical reach, and her recent work encompasses the waterways, bridges, highways, warehouses, factories, power lines, and machinery found along the edges of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx.
Although the locations have changed, Larko has never altered her method of painting directly from the sites that attract her. All her paintings are created on location, an approach that enables her to form relationships with both the environment and its inhabitants. Informed by encounters with people she meets while on location, Larko considers the process of painting to be as important as the final work.
Each of her paintings has a unique story--one that only reveals itself to the artist gradually, day by day, through patient and faithful observation. Sometimes taking months to complete, her eloquent paintings capture the strange beauty and quiet nobility of these often overlooked urban landscapes.
Cutters
Cutters presents artists who alter objects and surfaces to enhance their visual and symbolic meanings. They use knives, scissors, scalpels, razors, hole punches, lasers, jigsaws, shredders and even plasma cutters on a variety of materials. Exploring formal and conceptual issues, the works in the exhibition comprise a wide range of media, incorporating painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, video and installation. The thread that connects this diverse group of artists is the transformative quality of their work. The artists in the exhibition are Jaq Belcher, Louise Despont, Brian Dettmer, Kate Dodd, Michelle Forsyth, Beth Gilfilen, Cal Lane, Marco Maggi, Eva Mantell, Aric Obrosey, Mia Pearlman, Casey Ruble, Hunter Stabler, Merle Temkin, Auguste Rhonda Tymeson, Carlo Vialu, Paul Villinski, and Thomas Weaver.
Chotsani Elaine Dean
Clay Quilts/Post-Emancipation is both the artist's homage to her African American ancestry as well as a highly original statement in ceramic art. Chotsani Elaine Dean's background and training as a painter and ceramic artist imbue her tiles with color and texture achieved through deep knowledge of the complexities of clay, glazes, and the transformation that occurs through firing. The clay quilts become durable works of art, loving and respectful commentaries on art forms that in some cases have fortunately survived adversity, in others are situated in memory and tradition. The quilts have been reconceived as contemporary ceramic art through the exploration and creativity of a gifted artist.
Amy Wilson: "There are always such beautiful things..."
Jersey City artist Amy Wilson's watercolor drawings feature a cast of child-like female characters who communicate their thoughts, fears, hopes and dreams through diaristic text. Often deeply personal, the work touches on the inner life of the artist while addressing broader cultural ideas about femininity, art, science, and politics. In some instances the drawings become three-dimensional with the incorporation of cut-outs and pop-up constructions.
Walter Chandoha : 1940s New York
Walter Chandoha has had a long and successful career as a freelance photographer specializing in horticulture and animals. His photographs have appeared on over three hundred magazine covers and in thousands of advertisements; his illustrated articles on animals and gardens have been published in numerous books and magazines. He is the author or illustrator of twenty-six books, including How to Shoot and Sell Animal Photos.
The vintage black and white photographs in this exhibition were taken while Chandoha was a student at New York University's Stern School of Business in the late 1940s. Equipped with an inquiring eye, a keen sense of observation and a Rolleiflex camera, the young photographer wandered the city streets in search of a subject. The resulting photographs captured the changing scale and pace of New York City in the years following World War II. Many of these pictures showcase people moving through the city--on foot, in automobiles, trains and even boats. Some of them depict quiet moments of solitude in the midst of hustle and bustle. All of Chandoha's photographs provide a nostalgic glimpse of New York in the 1940s and offer new perspectives on the city we see today.
Material Color
Peter Fox, detail Royaume, 2008
Leslie Wayne, Mondo Mondo, 2008
Omar Chacon, Untitled Painting #177, 2008
Material Color showcases some of the innovative ways artists are handling paint today. The twenty artists in this exhibition apply oil, acrylic, encaustic and other pigments to a variety of surfaces using conventional, as well as unexpected methods. With eye droppers, plastic bottles, turkey basters, palette knives (and sometimes even brushes,) they drip, splash, pour, squeeze, squirt and layer their colors, balancing chance and discipline. Several of them peel off dried paint from one surface and transfer it to another, while others model and mold pigment into freestanding three-dimensional shapes. All of these techniques result in colorful, voluptuous surfaces that seduce our eyes and almost beg to be touched. With their layered surfaces or heavy impasto, the works in Material Color blur the boundaries between painting and sculpture, and seem to transform themselves into three-dimensional objects.
Participating artists are: Cecilia Biagini, Alana Bograd, Ivana Brenner, Omar Chacon, Carlos Estrada-Vega, Peter Fox, Vincent Hamel, Gregg Hill, Wil Jansen, Vadim Katznelson, Lori Kirkbride, Kathleen Kucka, James Lecce, Markus Linnenbrink, Joanne Mattera, Carolanna Parlato, Paul Russo, Robert Sagerman, Louise P. Sloane, and Leslie Wayne.
Hank Murta Adams: Sculpture
Making sculpture can, if desired, be collaborative, but working in glass is particularly intense and requires the cooperation of a team. Hank Murta Adams has a rich history of illuminating and sharing innovative approaches with residents at Wheaton Arts where he is Studio Creative Director, and in many universities and workshops.
Adams disarms our usual expectations of sculpture. Traditional assumptions about form and content appropriate to glass and metal are subverted. The artist's exploration of qualities inherent in the materials results in art with a fresh and quirky honesty.
"Produce," an installation, also references found objects, subjecting them to a variety of processes. While forms retain their objective identity, they simultaneously become integral partners in acts of technical wizardry; splashing, flowing liquid becomes rigid--ét voilà, glass! A myriad of these pieces on a twenty-two foot surface presents a marketplace of surprises, sometimes glittery, sandy or scorched--unexpected transmutations of familiar "produce" or discarded relics of another time. This is far removed from a discreet gallery arrangement of art objects and more like the jumble of human existence.
The "Ocupatto" series, with its recycled metal detritus of daily use, might be considered a visual commentary about our wasteful consumerism. Yet the pieces are also playful manifestations of the art of blown glass--but blown into empty tomato or kerosene cans from which grotesque heads emerge.
Cast pieces, heads, animals, objects, for which Adams has long been known, are raw and expressive. Light and color diffuse through them; wire elements spring from their grainy surfaces. Varied inclusions, protrusions and additions are visual explications of their titles and identities.
Hank Adams' sculpture is an ongoing experiment and adventure, conceptually, formally, and technically. It resonates with wit and irony as the artist explores the porous boundary between art and life.
2008 Members Exhibition
left: John Spears, Untitled, 2008; right Donna Lish, Cohesion, 2008.
Twenty-three artists who are members of the Hunterdon Art Museum exhibit work in the 2008 Members Exhibition. Douglas Ferrari, founder and Executive Director of the Shore Institute of the Contemporary Arts (SICA) in Long Branch, New Jersey, was the juror for this year's exhibition. Selected artists are Peter Arakawa, Wally Barnette, Berendina Buist, Leigh Orner- Carnese, Jacqueline Ann Clipsham, Michael Cooper, Buel Ecker, amy Evans, Charles Hanson, Rita Herzfeld, Roz Hollander, Betty Jacobsen, Donna L. Lish, Laura W. McClanahan, Lucy Metskill, Longia Miller, James Mullen, Marta Schee, John Spears, Laurinda Stockwell, Shirley Supp, Michael Wiley, and Etta Winigrad.
Curt Ikens: A New Season
Curt Ikens has always been interested in the inevitable deterioration of materials and information. He is intrigued with the idea that artists consistently try to create works that will outlast them; subsequently, art objects and art history play a central role in his work. Often referencing the work of other artists, he uses printed promotional items such as exhibition catalogs and announcement cards as raw materials.
Ikens also considers the exhibition space a stage for conversations about art, and often incorporates the space in his work. In this installation, both the architecture of the River Gallery and the exterior environment are critical elements. Using steam-bent wood stained to resemble the Museum's floorboards, Ikens has constructed a tree that appears to grow from the gallery floor. A carpet of leaves die-cut from previous Hunterdon Art Museum show cards and catalogs blankets the ground, while the leaves on the tree are fashioned from cards representing the current exhibitions. Timed to coincide with the changing fall foliage, this site-specific installation addresses the repetitive cycles in both nature and the art world. At this interesting intersection of nature and culture, Ikens reminds us that art--like life--has ongoing rhythms, with each new art season unfolding almost as reliably as the turning leaves.
The 52nd Annual National Juried Print Exhibition
| Christopher Lesnewski Untitled (detail), 2002 mixed media print Collection Hunderton Art Museum |
The 52nd Annual National Juried Print Exhibition showcases two and three dimensional prints using traditional print media, computer, or experimental techniques by artists from across the United States. The 2008 juror is Kathleen Goncharov, Director of the Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions at Mason Gross School of the Arts
The winners of the 2008 prizes are:
Tom Baker
Bad Weather, 2007
Relief and silkscreen
6 3/4 x 6 3/4 inches
James R. and Anne Steele Marsh Memorial Prize
Evan Lindquist
Departures, 2007
Burin engraving
12 x 8 inches
and
Succession, 2007
Burin engraving
12 x 9 inches
Johnson & Johnson Purchase Prize
Ross Racine
Subdivision: Greenfield Lakes, 2008
Digital drawing (inkjet print)
20 1/2 x 15 3/8 inches
Hunterdon Art Museum Purchase Prize
Johnson & Johnson Purchase Prize
Jon Rappleye
Jabberway
Lithograph
20 1/4 x 30 inches
Brodsky Center Residency Prize
Angela Young
Identity, 2008
Stone lithograph
23 x 30 inches
Lynd Ward Memorial Prize
The House That Sprawl Built
| Owen Kanzler New Neighborhood Manalapan, NJ, 2001 chromagenic print |
In the decades following World War Two the single-family suburban house emerged as a central component of the American Dream. The rapid development of mass-produced affordable housing created new suburbs and contributed to the phenomenon known as suburban sprawl.
The House that Sprawl Built presents the work of ten artists who incorporate ideas and images of suburban houses. Some of the work seems almost documentary, displaying repetitive sprawling neighborhoods. Other work is satirical, poking fun and implicitly criticizing the houses we build and the neighborhoods we create. Several artists put a surreal spin on the subdivision house, melting, mutating, or shrinking it. Still others create houses and neighborhoods that can only exist in the imagination or more recently, in cyber-space.
Many Americans engage in a "love-hate" relationship with the suburbs, their feelings ranging from nostalgia for an idyllic past and a growing dread of overcrowding, overdevelopment, loss of open spaces and dwindling resources. These ten artists explore this complex relationship by helping us see the places we call home in new and provocative ways.
Participating artists: Bill Amundson, Darlene Charneco, Julia Fullerton-Batten, Owen Kanzler, John Kirchner, Steve Lambert, Brian Loughlin, Robert Selwyn, Becky Suss, J. G. Zimmerman
Lisa Dahl: No Place Like Home
| Lisa Dahl Sub-Prime 2008 mixed media installation (detail) |
In a multi-media installation Lisa Dahl uses the suburban home to investigate the American Dream and its associated trappings. Having grown up in the suburbs of several cities throughout the country, and having been a resident of New York City for over a decade, she combines the vantage point of an outsider with an insider's intimate knowledge. Working with a variety of media - painting, photography, video, sculpture - Dahl's art often uses a large dose of playfulness and humor as it undermines the home's traditional sense of being a place of safety and security.
Faces and Figures: People from the Permanent Collection
Faces and Figures represents a variety of human forms and faces found in the Museum's permanent collection. Each work considers the human figure in its own way, and provides an opportunity to display a wide variety of media and styles. Faces and Figures showcases the diversity of printmaking techniques found in the Museum's collection, and the ways in which the representation of the human form is altered and energized by the artists' techniques. Each work reflects not only the personality of its subject, but of the artist as well.
The Hunterdon Art Museum was founded as a community art center created by and intended for the people of Clinton and the surrounding region. From the beginning, the Museum has accumulated as many people and personalities in its collection as the community it serves. The Hunterdon Art Museum's permanent collection has grown over the years to include the work of many well-known American artists as well as fine examples of work acquired through its Annual National Juried Print Exhibition. Several of these prints have not been included in a show of works from the Museum's permanent collection for some time, making this exhibition an opportunity to once again provide a voice to Hunterdon Art Museum's colorful characters, as well as the artists who created them.
2008 Spring Exhibitions
| Emil Lukas: Moderate Climate and the Bitter Bison 5/10/08 - 6/15/08 Jim Toia, Curator Learn more about this exhibition |
| ken ross: where men hide 4/6/08 - 5/4/08 Ellen Siegel, Curator Learn more about this exhibition |
Emil Lukas: Moderate Climate and the Bitter Bison
| 5/10/08 - 6/15/08 Emil Lukas: Moderate Climate and the Bitter Bison Jim Toia, Curator Opening Reception, Sunday May 18, 2-4 Artist Talk 3pm |
2008 Spring Exhibitions
| UNcommon clay 4/6/08 - 6/15/08 Hildreth York, Curator Ingrid Renard, Assistant Curator Learn more about this exhibition |
| close encounters: The Art of Bonnie Berkowitz 4/6/08 - 6/15/08 Mary Birmingham, Curator Learn more about this exhibition |
Ken Ross
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| Waldy's Workbench, 2008 Pigmented inkjet print 16 x 20 in. |
| These striking black and white photographs take the viewer on a tour of various places and spaces--the basements, garages and attics--where men retreat to get away from it all. Ken Ross creates telling portraits in the absence of his subjects by recording men's most private sanctums. His photographs are at once muscular and tender, a tribute to the essential nature of men. This revealing exhibition by the New Jersey based photographer will undoubtedly strike a familiar cord with men as well as women. Ross's photographs also provided the inspiration for Where Men Hide (Columbia University Press, 2006), a collaborative work with James Twitchell. |
 | Rick's Basement Office, 2008 Pigmented inket print 20 x 24 in. |
| Duck Blind, 2008 Pigmented inkjet print 8 x 10 in. |
 | Pop-Pop's Pegboard, 2008 Pigmented inkjet print 24 x 30 in. |
 | Chick's, 2008 Pigmented inkjet print 24 x 30 in. |
| Al's Car Barn, 2008 Pigmented inkjet print 24 x 30 in. |
| Shannon's Fly & Tackle, 2008 Pigmented inkjet print 16 x 20 in. |
 | Dad's Recliner, 2008 Pigmented inkjet print 20 x 24 in. |
 | Lap Dance Room, 2008 Pigmented inkjet print 20 x 24 in. |
 | Dick's Train Room, 2008 Pigmented inkjet print 20 x 24 in. |
 | Matt's Room, 2008 Pigmented inkjet print 16 x 20 in. |
 | Deer and Beer, 2008 Pigmented inkjet print 16 x 20 in. |
 | Dick's Tools, 2008 Pigmented inkjet print 20 x 24 in. |
Ken Ross: Artist's Statement
The idea for Where Men Hide was initiated a number of years ago when my then ten-year-old son suggested we set up a basement shop for our Scout projects. This seemed like a pretty good idea, and as we began planning, I thought it might be wise to visit the home shops of some friends to check out their set ups.
My family and I live in Mountainville, a tiny village of 19th century houses in northern Hunterdon County. Most of the residents have converted their barns or carriage houses to alternative uses. So to visit our first home shop we walked down the road to a neighbor's place. The owner was a middle-aged elementary school teacher who was highly regarded as a scoutmaster and woodsman. His shop was devoted to his real passion--restoring antique canoes. The place was amazing, a living testament to function and form, with a vintage pin-up overseeing the whole works.
Matt and I took home lots of great ideas for our shop that day and I got the notion that "guy places" might make an interesting series of pictures. I returned a couple of days later, and after a few false starts eventually came away with what I wanted. I have been working on and off on this project ever since.
The series had grown to forty or so images, ranging from a home slaughterhouse to my Dad's recliner, when I got a call from Jim Twitchell, and Where Men Hide was born.
My original title for this series was "Men's Rooms." This phrase still accurately describes the subjects of my pictures. The places are all exclusively male in function, sometimes private yet often communal, and they are surely visited as it becomes necessary.
Ken Ross, 2008
Ken Ross: Curator's Statement
In the past a man's home was his castle; not anymore. In the contemporary home even the man's study has been turned into the family room. Women now take the responsibility for the decoration and upkeep of the home, and we do it to our standards. So where do men go to get away from us?
About ten years ago I was talking with Ken Ross about a series of photographs that he was making. He called them "Men's Rooms." They chronicled those exclusive places where men went to be alone--dark, secretive, rooms, purpose specific, no "girls" allowed. The gate crashing voyeur in me was hooked. I wanted a glimpse into their world.
James Twitchell, professor of English and advertising at the University of Florida was having his hair cut when he picked up a March 1999 issue of Esquire magazine. The headline read, "Where We Go: Portraits of the Places Men without Women Inhabit." It caught his imagination. He and Ken Ross forged a collaboration that culminated in the book Where Men Hide, published in 2006 by Columbia Press. The subject matter was extended to include places where men congregate, but when I made my selections for this exhibition I found myself mostly drawn to those solitary rooms.
Ken Ross is not only a talented visual artist, but also a gifted story teller. He takes his photographs on film, scans the negatives, and does digital darkroom manipulation. The results are rich tones and complex values, teasing and tempting the border without ever dipping into the muddy. The rooms are brooding and dingy. The whiff of citrus cleaner or the roar of a vacuum cleaner has never invaded these spaces. The photographs narrate the stories of his subjects and serve as portraits of the men even in their absence from the image.
We women thought we knew these men. Through Ken Ross' work we learn we only knew them in our world, not theirs.
Ellen Siegel, Curator
Uncommon Clay
 Ruth Borgenicht Forrestal Village: Brown Tree (detail), 2007 salt-fired stoneware Photo: Joseph Painter | Clay is ubiquitous. If you gathered it all up and spread it evenly over the surface of the earth like peanut butter, you would create a mud layer a mile in thickness. |
| The artists in this exhibition have each found a way to make clay, one of the most ancient and common materials known to artists, "uncommon." The malleability of unfired clay offers infinite shaping possibilities. Its transformation through fire creates one of the world's most durable materials. Each of these artists is a master of the medium and the many physical, technical and chemical processes that turn earth into art. Yet what they share, aside from the fact that all are New Jerseyans, is their "uncommoness," the distinct personality of each artist's body of work. That all are residents of this State is deliberate on our part, and reflects the Hunterdon Museum's intention to highlight and bring to attention examples of outstanding creativity in our midst. Each of the artists has an impressive resume of prestigious exhibitions; all have made their knowledge and talents available through teaching and workshops. |
| Bennett Bean |  | Jim Jansma |
| Ruth Borgenicht |  | Taesik Song |
| Ka Kwong Hui |  | Mikhail Zakin |
Close Encounters: The Art of Bonnie Berkowitz
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| Bard, 2005 Hand/rod table top puppet Japanese and Czech beads, fabric, paper clay, paper, pigments |
| Bonnie Berkowitz discusses this work: "As the Bard took shape, I was influenced by the news of the war in Iraq. The idea of false reporting and censorship of the soldiers' deaths led me to give the Bard a golden pen. As in the past, Bards went to war and reported the historical events of war. So, the Bard's persona and story were created." |
 | Beaded Prince, 2005 Marionette Fabric, metallic embroidery floss, glass beads, paper clay, pigments, paper |
| All puppets tell stories; Berkowitz's puppets literally embody their stories, often in their very guts. The poem embedded in the Beaded Prince is aptly called "We Carry Our Stories With Us." In it she poses the question "How many words can a heart hold before the book flies open?" |
 | Four Answers, 1999 Book bracelet Czech glass beads, fabric, cotton cathedral beads, metallic thread Collection of Arlan and Bruce Kardon |
 | Levite's Daughter, 2000 Book shoe Japanese and Czech glass beads, leather, fabric |
 | Miriam's Glove, 2003 Paper, pigments, glass beads, thread |
| This work was inspired by the story of Miriam, a Biblical prophet who kept the Israelites alive in the desert with water from a miraculous well. The beads that flow like water through Miriam's glove represent the creativity flowing through the artist's hands. |
| Mother's Milk: Book Bra II, 2006 Fabric, wire, Japanese and Czech glass beads, embroidery floss |
Bonnie Berkowitz: Curator's Statement
Fiber artist Bonnie Berkowitz uses beading and stitching to transform ordinary objects into exquisite works of art. Her handmade books, garments, pillows, jewelry and puppets also tell stories, their richly embellished surfaces concealing poetic narratives. By stitching words directly into her art Berkowitz mirrors the way stories are embedded or even hidden within the individual psyche.
Her meticulously crafted works and seductive surfaces invite the viewer to take a second, closer look. Berkowitz explains: "When a pillow, a puppet, a book, a shoe or a garment becomes other than ordinary, when its surface becomes unfamiliar and invites closer examination, it is then that craft elevates the simple, familiar life experiences and adds wonder, joy and a longing to connect and touch, to know something more than only surface offers." This desire to go beneath the surface may explain the artist's fascination with concealing words within her objects.
Since her early childhood Berkowitz has been a storyteller, and as an artist she has found diverse and original ways to incorporate her stories into her art. Books, miniature theaters and puppets are natural vehicles for narrative, but Berkowitz also works in unexpected places. Sometimes she stitches poems directly onto surfaces, integrating the words into the decoration. Other times she conceals small books or scrolls within objects, often in the form of accordion "pages" that literally unfold before the viewer.
These transformed objects are loaded with meaning, both personal and universal. The observer who takes time to look beyond the surface is rewarded with an intimate connection to the work and its meaning. Such a close encounter with the art of Bonnie Berkowitz is internalized and carried by the viewer, where it continues to resonate.
Mary Birmingham
Curator
2008 Winter Exhibitions
 | 1/13/08 - 3/30/08 Cuba: Artists Experience Their Country Kristen Accola, Curator Opening Reception, Sunday January 13, 2-4 Panel Discussion 4pm |
 | 1/13/08 - 3/30/08 Nancy Moore Bess: Extraordinary Baskets Hildreth York, Curator Opening Reception, Sunday January 13, 2-4 See Education Department listings for workshop by artist |
Nancy Moore Bess: Extraordinary Baskets is funded by a generous grant from The Coby Foundation.
