Primordial No. 22, 8 x 8 inches, acrylic & mixed media on panel – ©2013 Deidre Adams

SPACE GALLERY

PRESENTS

SUMMER GROUP SHOW | 30²

FRONT GALLERY | FEATURING

MARKS AARDSMA | PATRICIA AARON | MONICA AIELLO | TYLER AIELLO | ROBIN AULT | TOM BOSMA | MICHAEL BURNETT | PENELOPE CALDWELL | JUDY CAMPBELL | SOPHIA DIXON DILLO PAUL ECKE | SARAH FOX | CARLENE FRANCES | MARCUS FITZGIBBONS | NOUMAN GAFAAR JASON LEE GIMBEL | JANE GUTHRIDGE | KAREN HAYNES | JEFF JUHLIN | MARK LUNNING MICHAEL MCCLUNG | LEWIS MCINNIS | IAN MCLAUGHLIN | EMILIE MITCHAM | MARK NELSON COREY POSTIGLIONE | KAREN SCHARER | STEPHEN SHACHTMAN | WILLIAM STOEHR

&

FOXTROT

REAR GALLERY | FEATURING

EMILIE MITCHAM | DEIDRE ADAMS

&

TERRA FIRMA

MEZZANINE GALLERY | FEATURING

YIANNI MELIOS | JEFF JUHLIN

ARTIST OPENING RECEPTION FRIDAY, JUNE 7th 5 – 8 pm

EXHIBITION RUNS JUNE 7th – AUGUST 10th

The Quilt National exhibition is held every two years at the Dairy Barn Arts Center in Athens, Ohio, home of Ohio University. Athens isn’t the easiest place to get to, but the show is phenomenal, and the Quilt National director and staff make all the artists feel very special. It’s worth every minute to see it in person. This year, a flat tire on the rental car notwithstanding, I had a great time there. Seeing old friends and meeting new ones is the best part of it. I enjoy taking pictures of as many artists as I can get to hold still in all the excitement. Some I could only get with my cell phone while they were doing their artist’s talk. The ice cream bar looking thing is a voice recorder.

 All photos ©Deidre Adams. All rights reserved. Please do not copy or share without permission.

(Click image for full view)               

So many people come to the exhibition, it can get a little overwhelming. But once the crowds clear out, you can finally have some time for really looking at all the fantastic work. I won’t post any pictures of the work, because you can order the book from the Dairy Center and see the professional shots which will do them better justice. But here are a few photos that will give you an idea of the overall exhibition.

Tracings III, 60 x 60 inches, acrylic & mixed media on panel – ©2013 Deidre Adams

My artist’s statement about this work:

Inspired by the structural elements and seductive surfaces of old buildings and walls, I explore ideas of time and transformation. An old wall tells a story, like a canvas upon which both nature and human beings play and leave their marks. Over the course of many years, layers of paint and graffiti are applied, only to be eroded by sun, rain, and wind. The result is a surface rich with texture and color.

Detail shots follow.

I’ll be back shortly with photos from the opening activities.

During my visit to SFMOMA in April, I was thrilled (yes, literally!) to have the opportunity to see Gu Wenda’s united nations – babel of the millennium. This monumental installation filled the atrium over the lobby and was visible through openings in the wall from all the floors above. Light from  the occulus overhead was captured and diffused by these ethereal translucent panels, creating a peaceful and serene environment that made me forget my intended mission of rushing through the entire museum as fast as possible so I could see everything in my limited time there, and to just stop – to be still for a time and just allow myself to experience it.

Originally created in 1999 specifically for this museum, this work is the fourteenth installment in Gu’s united nations series. For 20 countries chosen for “their historical and political importance,” Gu decided to create “monumental installations and land arts to capture each country’s identity, building on profound events in each country’s history” as well as some transnational, or “universal” works.  The series “explores such notions as transculturalism, transnationalism, and hybridization.” 1

With his trademark disdain for the use of capital letters, Gu explains his motivation for the project:

it is such a special journey to create the worldwide art project united nations. a journey that has developed through cultural, political, ethnic, and artistic experiences: as a red guard who painted revolutionary posters during mao’s cultural revolution; for more than ten years working in china; and sixteen years in the rest of the world as an individual artist. encountering diverse races and world cultures while reshaping their monuments, this path has given me a chance to confront what i have always been fascinated with: the egyptian pyramids; the myths of africa; the roman empire; the american adventure; the berlin wall; and china’s silk road and great wall. these spirits have always been the sources of my inspiration.

The texture of interwoven characters appears to impart an important message, but none of it is readable in any language. It looks like an ancient decree whose secrets have been lost to history. The characters form an invented script inspired by English, Chinese, Hindi, and Arabic written language, but they are not readable. The piece relates to the story of the Tower of Babel from the Bible, in which God decided to confuse the language of a united people and scatter them around the earth to thwart them in their efforts to build a tower to Heaven. Gu explains:

by juxtaposing and interweaving of pseudo-english, chinese, hindi and arabic languages, it introduces not only the misunderstandings within a single culture but also in a way symbolically unveils the conflicts of “co-existence” of bio/geo/cultural multism; on other side, “multism” isn’t a new thing after centuries of bio/geo/cultural exchange. the truth is there isn’t “purity” in the world. it is indeed, a fantasy of self awareness and the fear of losing oneself in a classical term of originality. however, by learning other culture isn’t just to enrich self, but simultaneously also to “otherize” oneself as well. so, face this co-existence of fake languages, english speakers cant read english, chinese people wouldn’t recognize chinese etc.. in fact, risk losing self originality and history to reconstruct self by opening self up to be influenced by others, or maintaining virtual purity of self by refusing others’ influences. this is not a new issue, but it is intensified in our daily practice in our era.

At first glance, babel of the millennium looks like a tapestry woven of synthetic fibers, but when viewed close up, it becomes apparent what the primary material really is: human hair. The work consists of over 100 panels made from hair collected from hundreds of barber shops and hair salons from countries all over the world, suspended in glue. Gu works with hair to connect the work to the people, to provide “direct physical contact, interaction, integration, and confrontation with the local population (collecting hair) and their cultural histories (conceptual reference).”

Gu’s earlier works have used other “primal substances” from the human body “which convey highly charged cultural and political significances and taboos.” His interest in them stems from the idea that “pure human body materials have no element of visual or linguistic illusion in themselves. they are the antithesis of art as object exhibited in museums and galleries. they are as  real as the people who look at them and therefore can penetrate us with a deep sense of spiritual presences.”

SFMOMA was kind enough to produce this video showing the installation process and giving further details about the work.

1. Source: Wenda Gu, the divine comedy of our times – a thesis on united nations art project & its time and environment

Last weekend I had the pleasure of visiting Northern California for a whirlwind tour of wine country. On the day we were to return home, we came back to San Francisco with a few hours to spare before our flight. My travel companions, not at all interested in art, had a hankering to sit in a bar and have sushi and beer. As undeniably compelling that sounds, I decided instead to take a quick side trip into the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) to see the big Garry Winogrand retrospective.

There are more than 300 photographs in the exhibition, about half of which are being seen for the first time, having come from the more than 6,500 (!) rolls of film that he left behind after his death at age 56. Winogrand was an extremely prolific and influential photographer; his preferred subject matter being people going about their daily life on the streets of New York and all over the country. He shot more than 20,000 rolls of film during his lifetime; a number that is difficult for me to comprehend in the days before digital made it so easy. The press release for the show is well worth reading to get an idea of the character and scope of his work and influence.

In 2 short hours, I wasn’t able to see everything I would have liked to, but another exhibit I spent some time exploring was Don’t Be Shy, Don’t Hold Back, a selection of contemporary works that were the gift of collectors Vicki and Kent Logan. According to the overview, “The Logans have been guided in their collecting by a commitment to the work of living artists and a belief that the best contemporary art reflects the culture and society of its era. They are unequivocal in their willingness to engage with artworks that bring to light uncomfortable or challenging subjects that might be easier to avoid than embrace. Over the years they have consistently sought out work that is vigorous and vital by artists whose integrity and intensity have brought new perspectives to bear on conventional assumptions about the art and culture of our time.”

These works include some artists who have been able to make a pretty comfortable living by being “challenging” and controversial, like Tracey Emin, John Currin, and Damien Hirst (obligatory flayed animal head in vitrine looks just as you’d expect). There are some that are quieter and more thoughtful, and one or two that will undeniably make some people squirm, like Jenny Saville’s Hem. A monumental painting, it features “mountainous curves and valleys, highlights and shadows … [that] land it squarely between landscape painting and the classic subject of the female nude” (from the wall label). Saville, who “turns the objectifying gaze on its head with this fleshly vista which refuses to conform to standards of conventional beauty,” was a favorite of my cohorts in painting classes, both for her subject matter and for her paint handling.

By far my favorite thing about going to an important art museum is seeing in person any work that I’d been familiar with from books or the internet. A good number of the old standbys and favorites on view: Robert Rauschenberg (always LOVE seeing the older ones close up — they seem so familiar now, it’s hard to imagine how they must have seemed back in the context of the time they were first seen), Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Philip Guston, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Gerhard Richter, Chuck Close, Ellsworth Kelly — and even a real-live Duchamp Fountain (Number 4 in the artist-sanctioned remakes after the original disappeared soon after its creation in 1917). See the black-and-white Cite (1951) by Ellsworth Kelly – so like a beautiful contemporary quilt.

There were a lot of other things I didn’t have time for. I’ll just have to go back again soon.

Primordial No. 5, 8 x 8 inches, acrylic & mixed media on panel – ©2013 Deidre Adams

Primordial No. 5, in January 2012

Primordial No. 4, 8 x 8 inches, acrylic & mixed media on panel – ©2013 Deidre Adams

Primordial No. 4, in January 2012

Ironically, there was a third painting I was going to include in this reworking post, but once I put the before and after images together, I decided I still didn’t like it. So back into the mill it goes, until next time.

I had some very minor surgery on my left hand last Tuesday. It was just a little bump at the base of my middle finger, whose genesis was a mishap with a bowling ball probably about 10 years ago when Max was in 6th grade and really into bowling. I first saw an orthopedist about it in 2006, when it was about the size of a grain of rice. He said I had a choice of 3 options: Have it surgically removed (which came with a scary list of possibly attendant risks), live with it , or cure it with the “Bible method.” Did that mean praying it away? No, it meant smashing it with a big, heavy book. After finding out it wasn’t cancer or some other really scary thing, I chose to live with it.

After years of being quite unobtrusive, my little friend chose to assert itself more dramatically in the last six months or so, swelling up to the size of a large pea and getting in the way of any activity that requires gripping an object. I thought about the smashing option, but since I’m left-handed, I quite reasonably feared making matters worse and rendering myself unable to write or paint. So, surgery was the remaining option. Once the procedure was officially scheduled, I still had a lot of nightmares about it, as I have an unfortunate inherited tendency toward hypochondria.

I’m happy to report that all went well, and I’m enjoying learning to do everything with my right hand while I have to keep this on for a total of 2 weeks. I can’t say enough about all the good people at Kaiser, who went out of their way to make me feel comfortable and safe. In these times of scary hospital horror stories, I feel unbelievably lucky to have this health insurance through my husband’s employer. We pay a lot for it, but when you need to have something done, at least you feel you have the option to do it. I can’t imagine what this would have cost if we’d had to pay “free market” prices for it.

While going through my photos in preparation for this posting, I was surprised to see that according to the dates on the image files, I finished the first 12 paintings in the Primordial series back in January of 2012. Time really is flying by; I thought it was much later in the year! While working on the first 12, I had ordered another 2 dozen 8×8 panels plus a dozen 12×12, and those sat in the basement for most of the year until I came back from Peru and had an urgent need to get back to painting. I prepped them all at the same time – tape the sides, then give each one two coats of Golden GAC100 and three thin coats of gesso. This goes pretty fast with a paint roller, so it’s not as bad as it sounds.

When faced with a repetitive task that doesn’t require much creativity, I like to listen to something other than music to take my mind off how boring it is. TED talks are good for this, but I also found a local podcast called Untitled Art Show that was so interesting, I decided to go back and listen to a lot of the really early ones. While the main focus of the shows is the Denver art scene and local artists, the hosts – Erik Isaac and Michael Keen –  also do an admirable job of discussing the issues and opportunities encountered by artists everywhere. For example, how does an artist who works in more than one discipline handle the pros and cons of doing so? That’s an issue that particularly resonates with me.

I hadn’t planned on doing so originally, but after prepping all those panels, I decided to keep them all out and start working on them at the same time. This ended up having several advantages, one of which is that if you’re in the mode of working small, you don’t have to continually adjust your mindset.

Primordial series in progress. ©2013Deidre Adams

Another interesting phenomenon of working this way is that the works are all informed by one another; it’s as though they’re having a conversation among themselves. A design element for one very often inspires a solution for a problem with a different one.

The only clear disadvantage is space. As I worked on each one, I would move it off the table and onto my secondary working space, the plastic on the floor, to get it out of the way while it dried. I sure love having my studio in my house because I can get up at 5 in the morning and start working right away if so inclined, or keep working well into the evening and not have to go out into the cold and drive back and forth to a studio. But I would also love to have about twice as much room as I currently do. Some day I’ll be rich and famous and will make this happen.

This is the second painting I was working on concurrently with Suspension of Disbelief. With this one, I remembered to take some in-progress photos as I went. Wish I’d thought to shoot them all from the same direction, but most of the time I don’t decide which way is up until I’m done, and sometimes I’ll even change my mind long after it’s been photographed.

(Update 2/23/13: Found an earlier in-progress shot, below:)

Stage 1 is getting the whole thing covered with color and texture. No plan at this point. Use whatever paint I got on sale, the uglier the better, because it’s all just to get some movement going on here. Good thing I’m neat, because that’s my bedroom carpet under the plastic.

Next stage is to start my “writing” and other markings. This is the most fun part; I lose myself in the process and avoid judging anything too much now. Then I add washes of color. Then more markings, more color washes, with each stage separated by a layer of acrylic medium to build up depth and richness. Each layering of markings, color wash, and medium needs several hours or a day or two to dry in between. I think of this process as similar to to what happens in nature as layers of sand or organic material are deposited on the surface of the earth over time. Some time I think I’ll do a test on a small one and sand back down into it to see what I get. It would be fun to remember all the old colors that are down in there.

Now I have to start making some choices about color. I can’t really explain to you how I choose colors, other than to say that at earlier stages I’m picking colors I don’t really like all that much because I don’t want to be tempted to stop too early. It could be argued that the painting at this stage was more exciting than the finished result, but I had it in mind that I was going for something quieter. All of these bright colors were meant to give the finished painting a richness, and not to be a major feature of it.

Here are some details:

I think of it as a sort of landscape of the mind – at least my own mind, which has a tendency to go wild in unproductive ways until I force myself to stop and focus. (This seems to be getting more difficult the older I get. I blame the Internet.) The quieting down of the crazy color could be analogous to meditation. As you can see, I’m not so good at that yet.

My last two posts were about a series of small paintings I’m finishing up. But I like to keep things interesting for myself, so at the same time I’ve been working on what are for me a couple of very large paintings. Since my studio is in my master bedroom, this is the largest painting on wood I can conceivably do in that space. I normally work with panels horizontally, on the table, because my method is mostly too wet and sloppy to do upright, at least until close to the end. A panel this size is too heavy for me to lift by myself, so instead of working on my table, I spread out plastic on the floor and work on them there. This is working out pretty well because I can easily get around to all four sides of a work. Once the latest layers are settled enough, I can stand the first painting up in the bathroom to dry and then set the next one down on the floor to work on. Who needs a gym when you can manhandle these things around all day?

Suspension of Disbelief (detail) – ©2012 Deidre Adams