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About the Exhibitions
Opening reception: Thursday, May 27, 5:30 - 7:30 pm
Vanitas: Contemporary Recflections - second
floor main galleries
The summer exhibition will highlight examples
in contemporary craft of a Vanitas theme. “Vanitas”
is a Latin word used since the Renaissance to describe the
transitory nature of life. The term characterizes the appreciation
of life’s pleasures and accomplishments joined with
the awareness of their inevitable loss. Artists Candy
Depew, Myra Mimlitsch Gray, Katherine
Kaminski, Audrey Hasen Russell, and Gae Savannah will
present work that explores this theme for a contemporary audience,
drawing on its 17th Century origins in Dutch Still Life Painting.
More superficially but inescapably, this recorded the affluent
circumstances of the artist or patron who commissioned them:
fine linens, crystal and fresh, abundant food, the stuff of
life. Countering this show of vanity, many historic still
lifes were vanitas paintings, reminders of the brevity of
life, which emphasized fleeting material pleasure as a contrast
to infinite, ineffable spiritual joy. Ultimately these representations
of decadence, over-embellishment, decay and waste are reminders
of mortality. Presenting objects that symbolize earthly pleasures
and the ephemeral nature of both art and life, works in ceramics,
metals, glass, fiber and mixed media will reflect each artists’
perspective and consideration of this genre.
En Route Series featuring Atticus Adams
(metails) and Andrea Gaydos Landau (fiber)
- first floor galleries
Atticus Adams - Trancendental:
Concentrating on the medium of aluminum mesh and wire, Atticus
Adams large-scale sculptural forms are actually based in his
interest in architecture. Playing with light and shadow volume
and transparency, the scale of his work envelops the viewer
into a space shaped through hollow form. Based on an interest
in Henry David Thoreau, Adam’s work also suggests connections
to place, and the artist's ability to be attuned to the many
layers of an environment. In describing his process, Adams
states, “I wanted to take materials that I found inherently
beautiful: metal mesh, wire, etc., and see what I could learn
from them. By providing an intuitive creative direction of
their own, I became engaged in the mystery of the creative
process and the joy of that experience.”
Andrea Gaydos Landau: Control Point
Control Point is a full scale room installation
on view throughout the summer at the Philadelphia Art Alliance.
Vines break through the ceiling and erupt from the floor.
Andrea Gaydos Landau orchestrates a gallery take over. An
accumulated density of linear vines forms an emerging pattern.
Constructed like a drawing, the installation is composed from
varying fabrics of different densities. They shift like shadows;
faint gestures of movement and life.
Andrea Gaydos Landau's broader studio practice tackles the
notion of structure, both architectonic and organic, decorative
and chaotic, along with processes that are suggestive of addition,
division and subtraction. By building or compiling with pattern,
Landau wishes to reveal information of a new order, or perhaps
to expose the subtle possibility of an alternative cosmology.
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