"The Unnatural" Exhibition

Kate Werble Gallery

poster for "The Unnatural" Exhibition

This event has ended.

Kate Werble Gallery presents the work of four artists, Anna Betbeze, Carolyn Salas, Molly Smith, and Sarah E. Wood in The Unnatural. The show will consist of 5 new works that reconsider the human relationship to nature and to interpreted landscape. Together, the works emphasize the juxtaposition between a landscape of man-made materials with traditional ideas of natural beauty, reflecting the reality of a landscape shaped by human contact.

Anna Betbeze approaches material transformation through toxic and unnatural processes. For one of the works in this exhibition, Betbeze shoveled hot coals onto a store-bought Flokati rug. The coals and fire removed large portions of the rug, turned the wool into ash, creating the altered material for the final, formal composition. In a second work, Betbeze uses liquid materials such as resin and plaster to soak a wool rug until it is transformed into a hardened shell.

Carolyn Salas' large, cast plaster sculpture references a decayed, washed-out, and peeling landscape. Dyed and polished, the tension between the hard surface and undulating form evokes a desire for totemic, industrial, and impenetrable objects that aspire to immunity from corrosion.

Molly Smith creates environmental forms out of discarded papers, plastics and other man-made materials. In the work for this exhibition, Smith incorporates refuse in a standing, paper sculpture completed during her residency at Dieu Donné. Her repurposing of the remnants from society suggests the possibility for a chance at regeneration.

Sarah E. Wood employs a spare and formal vocabulary using industrial materials that adopt complexity by mimicking natural forms. In her series of unique reliefs for this exhibition, plaster, ink and a rope are cast on top of plastic sheets leaving an impression on the surface. The final results hang as fossils of Wood's process, demonstrating a prior physical action and material weight.

[image: Anna Betbeze "Nocturne" (2012)]

Media

Schedule

from August 31, 2012 to September 29, 2012

Opening Reception on 2012-09-04 from 18:00 to 20:00

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