Studio during quarantine, continued
As the quarantine continues, so do I, in my studio. And, as with the uncertainty of this time, so it goes in the studio. My last post reflected on bringing aspects of past work forward. I had a plan. Full stop. I’m thankful for having learned long ago that plans, sometimes, are only the beginning of the journey in the studio. I know to stay open and watchful of things taking a different direction, which brings me to this week’s discoveries that arose out of a shortage of materials and attempting to make a substitution. It didn’t work “as planned” yet brought together aspects of past projects and melded with some new thinking. These pieces are so fresh; they currently don’t have titles. I consider them somewhat ungraspable and ethereal. They appear to behave like solid, gas, and liquid all at the same time; the edges are the center.
Untitled for now, 8.25 x 7.25 x .75 inches, acrylic on acrylic panel, 2020
Untitled, for now, 8.25 x 7.25. x .75 inches, acrylic on acrylic panel, 2020
Three Shelf Redder
“Three Shelf Redder” Exhibition Opens at Space 325/325, April 15, 7-9pm
Gallery Hours: Saturday & Sunday 4/16, 22, 23, 29, 30 1-4pmor by appointment with the artists.
This body of work is in keeping with my previous conceptually driven explorations of color yet offers a new strain of exploration, transposing words to color. The paintings are crude, on purpose, showing their failure, expressing time and adjustments.
from the press release:
Ridgewood, NY, April 9, 2017
Two women arrive at a party, are introduced to one another by the host who suggests a kinship between their work. Studio visits are arranged, the mutual intersection within the work is realized, an offer to exhibit comes forward.
The meaning of words, mountains, nature, memory, amplifying structures and colors are the crossover points between the work of Shen and Ramsay.
Debra Ramsay’s artwork is conceptually rigorous and process-oriented. The idea comes first; the search for materials, methods and procedures that will best support the idea follows. For “Three Shelf Redder” Ramsay is introducing a body of work created from obscure and off-beat definitions of color, sourced from The Dictionary of Colour, by Ian Paterson. “Redder,” for example, is the title of a painting based on the only palindromic color word in the English language. These monochromatic paintings work with color and light, as their translucent supports and layers of colors react with the ambient light. Ramsay is concerned with many of the principles the Light and Space artists of the 60’s as well as the humor that can be packed in conceptual art such as in the work of contemporary artist Spencer Finch.
Hilda Shen’s new sculptures are small, displayed in a way that emphasizes our physical reaction to scale. One leans in to focus and scrutinize the details, and there is an urge to touch these glazed ceramic pieces. There are two projects which are developed here: “Range of Mountains” reinterprets the tradition of Chinese scholar rocks as objects of contemplation; “Northwest” is inspired by Shen’s studies of Pacific Northwest forests, the transformation of energy from immense decaying nurse logs to young saplings. In “Three Shelf Redder” Shen continues her long-standing interest in landscape and the reciprocal influence of culture and nature.
