Laura Petrovich-Cheney “Block Party”
A.I.R. Gallery
This event has ended.
A.I.R. Gallery presents Block Party an exhibition of new work by Laura Petrovich-Cheney on view from January 9th - February 2nd, 2014, with an opening reception on Thursday January 9, from 6-9pm.
Laura Petrovich-Cheney creates art by resurrecting and transforming wooden debris she finds in her natural surroundings. After Hurricane Sandy devastated the Northeast coastline of New Jersey and the surrounding area, Petrovich-Cheney began collecting the remains left behind in its wake—floorboards, window frames, cabinets, furniture, exterior siding—anything that she could find that evoked life before the storm. Petrovich- Cheney’s art is inspired by traditional American patchwork quilt designs—designs that are familiar and comforting. She transforms the salvaged wood into quilt-like pieces of art, creating new relationships between color, proportion, texture, and surfaces.
The work in this exhibit evokes the past through its use of colors that mark a particular decade—e.g., ‘80s pastels, and ‘70s avocado kitchen green. The faded colors and tattered surfaces of the wood are a nostalgic glimpse into the past. The visual history of the salvaged wood – the chipped layers of paint, the nail holes, the grain- tells a story. In her piece, Relative Confusion, Petrovich-Cheney has reclaimed the wood to preserve it and to prevent its ultimate demise. She never interferes with the original color; she just uses the found wood to create abstract, relief patterns. L aura Petrovich-Cheney received her MFA in Studio Arts from Moore College of Art and Design, her MS in Fashion Design from Drexel University and her BA in Fine Arts and English Literature from Dickinson College. Her work has been exhibited nationwide and is included in several private and public collections, including MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper Hospital, New Jersey and Temple University Hospital, Philadelphia, PA. She has received awards from the National Academy of Art, Monmouth Museum, National Art Education Association and the New Jersey Art Center and was awarded a Geraldine Dodge Grant. She has just recently returned from a month long residency to the Arctic Circle.
[Image: Laura Petrovich-Cheney, Relative Confusion, Salvaged wood, 2013]
Media
Schedule
from January 09, 2014 to February 02, 2014
Artist Talk: Thursday, January 9th at 6:30pm
Opening Reception on 2014-01-09 from 18:00 to 21:00