NYAB Event - Kathleen Schneider "Petals and Wings"

Kathleen Schneider "Petals and Wings"

A.I.R. Gallery

This event has ended.

A.I.R. Gallery announces Petals and Wings, an exhibition of new sculpture and prints by Kathleen Schneider. The works in Petals and Wings continue Schneider's engagement with locating gesture and movement (implied action, stopped-action) in sculptures that are discrete, hand-made, self-contained, and still.
 
Five new sculptural pieces feature “equal and opposing actions happening at the same time” and embody the characteristics of simultaneity. Each work in the exhibition fluctuates, in materials and meaning, between the recognizable and the abstract. A large wall assemblage, several hanging spherical clusters, and four framed splashes of color - poised throughout the gallery in dynamic equilibrium - could as easily be described as a large wing, two giant “bouquets “, and four floral “still lives.”

The “bouquets” are explosive masses of color suspended from the ceiling. Each piece is made of multitudes of deconstructed artificial flower petals sprouting from a structural core. Bouquet I has knotted wire helicopters embedded in its lush array. Bouquet II, densely packed with petaled wires spiraling from a dark center, appears to be arrested in the activity of growing and unraveling. Spanwing is a complex system of regular and irregular displays of flower-patterned paper airplanes intertwined in wing -like formation. It shimmers and hovers against the gallery wall. Up close the folded units come into focus as F-35 fighter planes.

All the works in the show are intended to give pleasure. Brilliant colors and richly articulated surfaces seduce the viewer to come close. A sinister twist, often camouflaged into or under the tactile surfaces, contradicts the desire to touch. Fleeting references to places, things (man-made and natural), and events (current and historical) can be found in the work. The artist “started with the bombing of a city and thought about the beauty of a garden – the Garden of Eden, the “fertile delta”; the “hanging gardens”; flowers carpeting a desert, “carpet bombing”; Persian paradise gardens, “carpet gardens”; Mughal gardens, the gardens of Versailles; Dutch still-life flower paintings (nature morte) and Cezanne’s Water Lilies.”

Kathleen Schneider lives in Winooski, Vermont and New York City, makes her work in both places, and is a Professor of Sculpture at the University of Vermont. Solo and group exhibitions include DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA; Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ; University Gallery, University of Massachusetts/Amherst; Robert Hull Fleming Museum, Burlington, VT; American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York. Awards and residencies include the Vermont Arts Council, and Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY.
 

Media

• Prints
• Sculpture

ADVERTISE ON NYAB