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GALLERY OF CONTEMPORARY ART FEATURES 'EARTH' EXHIBIT
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West 38g (2007), Kim Keever
C-print
32 x 48 inches, edition of 3
Courtesy of Kinz + Tillou FINE ART, NYC | Sacred Heart University’s Gallery of Contemporary Art will stage its fourth – and final -- exhibit in the series about The Elements, focusing on Earth. This special presentation will open Sunday, January 25, with a reception from 1-3:30 p.m. An Artist’s Talk by Eva Lee will immediately follow the opening reception at 3:30 p.m., on the topic “Art Meets Neuroscience.” Closed President’s Weekend, the exhibit will run until March 5.
The exhibit includes 16 artists whose media ranges from traditional pastels and photographs to neuroscientific data translated in to a multi-channel digital video installation, to the use of natural materials in the landscape.
The ancient philosopher, Empedocles, noted the world’s division into four naturally occurring elements: “earth, sea, air and the fiery aether of the heavenly bodies,” that were the basis of all matter. For centuries, these elements continued to be the foundation for our decoding of the world. According to Sophia Gevas, the director of the University’s Gallery of Contemporary Art, many of the works in this exhibition deal with human interaction with our environment and natural resource allocation. It could be argued that the first “earth works” were very early man’s attempt to mark and control his environment at places such as Stonehenge.
Two variants of earth works in this exhibit, Andy Goldsworthy’s Fresh, thin leaves/wrapped around rotted trunk/held with water/Lennox, Massachusetts /13 May 2005, and Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Reichstag (1996), are works that are best known by their documentation, since no trace is left after their completion.
Goldsworthy uses natural materials, many times from the site of creation (such as leaves, ice and stone), to make his work, intending that it will be ephemeral and have a life-cycle of creation, stasis and ultimately decay. In this case, little remains of the intense green leaves that once made a quiet and stunning statement deep in the woods. Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the husband-and-wife team, draw attention to the land and/or human constructs upon it by draping impossibly large areas in fabric for up to three weeks, after which all of the materials are recycled. The temporarily vacant 100-year-old Reichstag was draped in a silvery reflective material that waved and swayed in the wind.
Apo Torosyan (West Peabody, Mass.) makes his art and films as a reflection of his immigrant experiences. As a child in Turkey, he witnessed the 1955 pogrom and the destruction of the old Constantinople. Earth (2008) is gently mounded soil.
Niki Ketchman’s (Westport, Conn.) Landscape 2 (2006) is a collaged and painted globe tethered from the ceiling to a small half-globe shape with a plastic tree.
The Black Estate, an artists’ collaborative composed of Noah McDonald and Scott Pagano, combines the centuries-old tradition of ink wash drawings and contemporary animation. Fall (2007) is enclosed in a beautifully crafted wooden box with an ocular lens, from which one individually experiences the swirling, falling leaves. Parrita in Process (2001), by Michele Brody, is also a reflection of time and landscape, depicting the life cycle of a palm plantation in Costa Rica.
Stephanie Lempert’s Spectacle Island Park (2008), a photograph of a reclaimed landfill site, is overlaid with the comments of those who participated in the reclamation process and its long tumultuous history.
In a departure from actual landscapes, three of the artists, Kim Keever, Eva Lee (Ridgefield, Conn.) and Gerald Saladyga (New Haven, Conn.) manufacture landscapes as part of their work.
Keever creates majestic, sweeping landscapes in a 100-gallon fish tank filled with water. These elaborately staged artificial productions are post-Hudson River School works; empty, surreal, eerie landscapes that reflect the fact that humans are drawn to the sublime and beautiful but not necessarily committed to ensuring its survival.
Lee has been working with neuroscientist Dr. James Cohan of the University of Virginia to create 3D animations of EEG readings of 12 people during five emotional states (anger, joy, fear, sadness and disgust).
A landscape painter of the cosmos, Saladyga imagines the earth seen from space in multiple views upon a canvas with a starlit sky behind them. His Apocalypse (2008) is inspired by global positioning and geographical photographs.
Also looking down at the earth, Anthony Facetta’s (Mansfield, Conn.) #P121228 (2008) is a lushly painted bird’s-eye view of a flowing river and the banks that contain it.
David Meisel’s abstract images, taken from the air and recording the loss of waterways, led to his aerial photographs of where that water flowed– Los Angeles. Oblivion 9n (2004), with its reversal of black and white, reminds us of x-rays that reveal something that is hidden, the monstrous effect of development, exquisitely documented, forbiddingly beautiful. In a reversal, Margaret McCarthy’s romantic photograph The Crystal Cave (2007) from the “Portals Series” is taken from inside a cave to depict the rays of the sun streaming into the opening.
Jane Sutherland’s (Fairfield, Conn.) masterful eye for detail in her pastel Loggie’s Greenhouse (2002) shows us a close-up view of the lush plantings created within the glass walls of a climate-controlled space. Margaret Tsirantonakis’ (Stamford, Conn.) Ancient Vase Echoes in the Landscape (2004), a woodblock and monotype, depicts the classical shape of a container made of clay, suspended between the mountains and sea of her native Crete.
Most of Barbara Rothenberg’s (Westport, Conn.) works contain a reference to nature’s life cycles, such as roots, seeds and plant forms. Her rich and textured oil and collage work, Up From Earth # 2 (date) is comprised of manipulated images of mushrooms.
“Implicit in any representation of life forms is its transformation and regeneration,” said Sophia Gevas, director of the SHU Gallery of Contemporary Art. “One can only hope that the creativity that is evident in these works will be reflected in our efforts to sustain our blue planet.”
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