Earthwork
April 14 – June 12, 2011
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 14, 6-8pm
Panel Discussion: Thursday, May 12, 6:30pm
Curator: Maddy Rosenberg
Nineteen international artists look at the earth from all edges of it. Drawn, photographed, printed, cut, hacked, diced, assembled, witnessed, with resonating metaphors, these artists present their interpretations of the stuff we gravitate to.
David W. Powell combs discarded science textbooks to scavenge images, while the texts of Tania Kovats tell a different tale. David Redfern collages an advertisement of the truly high cost of the low cost of oil. Barbara Siegel recreates the study of a geologist through his own studies, a warm and inviting installation; Maureen Piggins uncovers the geologist by peeling away the layers.
British artist Alastair Noble plots and maps the terrain- literally. Nelly Ben Hayoun takes the geological phenomenon of a volcano and changes its context with amusing and thought provoking results. Julia Buttelmann, with her usual wit, presents her own mineralogical box of “gems” while Travis Childers gives us meta-rocks with his basic process of tape and collage; Adrienne Klein turns a pile of rocks into a social metaphor. As a ceramicist, Puneeta Mittal molds the earth into primal tubing and Eve Andrée Laramée encrusts a microscope as an artifact of a bygone civilization.
The French Canadian artist Guy Laramée carves his caverns into “stone” volumes. From his studio in London, Paul Tecklenberg dissects and slices the core. German book artist Tina Flau, in her impeccable hand rendered presentation, transports us around the earth and through it, while Anne Gilman beckons us to walk the topsoil, but tread lightly. Ellen Wiener reveals the earth page by page through a dance with words and images. The printed woodcut fossilized images of Susan Makov unfold but a journey unravels along the surface calm with the Japanese photographer Yoichi Nagata, the tension quivering beneath. Some artists analyze the world, these delve into the earth.
