“Domestic Disturbances” Exhibition

Atlantic Gallery

poster for “Domestic Disturbances” Exhibition

This event has ended.

Elisa D’Arrigo
Lael Marshall
Joanne Mattera
Jim Osman
Sue Ravitz
Lizzie Scott
Debra Smith
Patricia Zarate

Curator: Joanne Freeman

Domestic Disturbances features the work of eight artists whose work merges functional and non-functional elements, highlighting the interplay of art and design. Traditionally the use of craft and design was associated with domesticity, functionality and decoration. These classifications have contributed to a hierarchy that historically marginalized and devalued the art of women, minorities and non-western cultures. Changes in cultural awareness precipitated by feminism, gender identity and racial diversity have shifted perceptions of aesthetic value and in turn softened divisions in the art world. The artists participating in Domestic Disturbances have come full circle, bringing a multidisciplinary approach to their practice that champions both the fine and applied arts. Building on a devalued history of marginalization, their work celebrates the personal as political.
Joanne Freeman 2017

The departing point for Elisa D’Arrigo’s clay works is the vase. The blurring of categories energizes her: sculpture, painting, drawing and with this work, functionality. Beginning with hollow hand built clay elements she combines and manipulates during a period of intense improvisation. Chance is implicit in the process and the “postures” that result allude to the body in a gestural or visceral manner. The configuration of the work suggests what might be placed inside, allowing the viewer a more intimate involvement with the work, one involving touch and even domesticity,

Lael Marshalls’ works are part of an ongoing series involving fabric. She is first drawn to an attribute of a woven cloth; be it the color, pattern, texture or transparency. She uses one or more of these qualities as a starting point for her work. The addition of paint and/or glue, cutting and re-ordering of the material back together again, and addressing the natural tendency of the fabric to pull, torque or twist are all part of her involvement and process. She has no singular method or mode of working; each piece must find it’s particular solution.

Each painting in Joanne Mattera’s ongoing Silk Road series is a small color field achieved by layers of translucent wax paint applied at right angles. The series, begun in 2005, was inspired by the shimmery quality of iridescent silk, but quickly evolved into more expansive explorations of color. Silk Road is the most succulent painting she has done. It is also the most reductive. In plying a richness of material against the austerity of an implied grid, she sets in motion a small-scale dynamic in which more and less jostle for primacy.

Jim Osman combines layers and compresses different kinds of space. The vessels that give these spaces form can be clear and tangible like architecture and furniture or symbolic like a flag or just formal – a color. Combining these forms make for odd, unthought of arrangements that once started are reconciled formally, all the while staying true to a notion of space that is convoluted , dense and opaque yet somehow understood.

Sue Ravitz credits her studio practice on the generations of women in her family that did crafts. While having a family she continued to do handwork, knitting small blocks of color patterns, spreading them out on the floor, and considering how they related to each other. Upon moving to New York she began making rugs and thinking about pattern work, but her main focus still remained color interaction. Her complex needlepoints began as simple pattern explorations.

Lizzie Scott’s Drifters, described by the artist as, hybrid textile-muslin object-paintings are loosely based on the structure of sleeping bags. They can identify as both paintings and objects, while adapting to sites and situations as needed. Whether paintings or objects the artist’s intent is for them to function as autonomous objects, open to possibilities beyond intent and control of the artist.

The foundation of Debra Smith’s practice comes from her collection of vintage Kimono fabric and striped silk (deadstock originally intended to line suits). She describes her practice as poetic language, reinterpreting the painterly through a meditative and meticulous process of cutting, piecing and sewing. The use of vintage textiles emphasizes the history, weight and poetry inherent in the
work.

Patricia Zarate creates images conjured from experiences of observation, memory, language, music, etc. Presently color, pattern and light have preoccupied her. She is interested in the placement and relationship of objects and how context affects perception. Working in a variety of media, including painting, drawing and photography, she uses minimal and conceptual approaches, such as pairing, seriality, pattern, repetition and uniformity to construct her images.

Media

Schedule

from September 16, 2017 to October 19, 2017

Opening Reception on 2017-09-16 from 18:00 to 21:00

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