Sunday, March 6, 2011

Textural Space: at the Conrad Wilde Gallery's "6AEI"

artist Brandy Eiger with work from her Prayer Book series
works by Lynette Haggard, Rythmo Box series (left) and Karl Kaiser, Summer Leaf (right)


The Conrad Wilde Gallery's exhibition, the 6th Annual Encaustic Invitational, currently showing in Tucson, AZ, features 20 established artists from across the United States. Last night was the exciting artist talk and opening reception...so wonderful to have artists fly/drive in from as far as California, Florida and Texas. The show is up thru March 26th.

The event started with a very well attended artists' talk given by attending artists Brandy Eiger, Cari Hernandez, Rodney Thompson, Sharon Kyle Kuhn and myself.
Rodney Thompson spoke of his intrigue with the horizon and how it can become metaphor for the "dissolution of what is now and what we will become".
New Earth by Rodney Thompson


Cari Hernandez with her work entitled My Fragmented Life (below)

Cari Hernandez said that when she begins a work, she "takes pause to connect" with and become aware of what she is experiencing internally. Expressing her emotional state is the focus for her imagery.


works below by Jane Allen Nodine, Trace.054; and then Toby Sisson, Everything is Happening All the Time III


work below by Molly Geissman entitled Doing Time 38

work below by Fanne Fernow entitled Prayers for the Earth


Sharon Kyle Kuhn (below with her work entitled The Strength of Smyth and Long) expressed her curiosity about how the recycled objects she uses within her work, might some day "act as historical markers for our [social] character."



Above works by Gwendolyn Plunkett, Sun Spots-Solar Minimuim, Solar Maximum (diptych) (above)
and Donna Hamil Talman, Sentieri 14 (below)


artist Margaret Suchland with her work entitled Marking Time n. 11

Opening Reception shots:




work by Deanna Wood entitled Discovery (above)

above work w/detail above by Ruth Hiller


works above, from left, by Alison Golder, Alignment of Six; Ruth Gooch, Alchemy N. 3, and Deborah Kapoor, Of The Flesh





Painting above by Willow Bader entitled Red Cumparsita


Vesica, above by artist Catherine Nash
encaustic painting, gossamer thin Japanese kozo paper
with encaustic monoprint, oil stick filled sgrafitto
24"h X 36"w

When it was my turn to speak about my triptych entitled Vesica, I described how the sky holds the ultimate touchstone for me. I am fascinated with how, through time, humankind has sought to explain and fathom the mystery of our being: in these bodies, on this planet, in this galaxy through mathematics and science and religion.

Sacred Geometry superimposed over the landscape: The Vesica, a shape created by two overlapping circles is a mathematical diagram that has held and carried much meaning through the ages. In particular, the translation that greatly intrigues me is that one circle represents universal consciousness (the archetypal realm) and the second, empirical consciousness (evidence based). Where they overlap is balance. I seek balance within a world and life that cannot be fully explained. I am willing to live in balance within the mystery....