The Art of Materials

Vicky Kumpfer

Lisa Lightman, Chair of Exhibitions

Co-Curators

Tools As Art – North Gallery

Cat Alden, guest curator 

May 9 to June 22

Opening Reception for Both Exhibitions:  Thursday, May 9, 5:30-7:30pm

The Art of Materials

 This exhibition brings together artists who are working with paper, fabric, industrial felt, metal, steel, cement, clay, plastic, cork, and wood.  Some of the artists combine disparate materials that embody imaginative content or reuse materials that create symbolic forms. Others opt for a single material that gives full voice to their artistic expression.  As curators, The Art of Materials exhibition has two major questions which are the central topic of consideration:  why an artist chooses the material used in their artwork and how the selection of that material reflects what the artist wants to say.

Participating Artists: Mari Andrews (steel and wire); David Duskin (steel); Sofia Gonzalez (fabric); Brooke Holve (paper); C.K.Itamura (plastic); Byron B. Kim (paper); Lisa Kokin (industrial felt); Bebe Kuhr (reed and stone); Rachel Leibman (reuse materials); Jann Nunn (cork and paper); Shoji Uemura (clay and cement); Jonah Ward (wood); Susan Wolsborn (cement)

Tools As Art
Tools. We take them for granted. The machine-shop smell of the hardware store with its rows of odd-shaped hammers and axe heads as elegant as Cycladic sculptures. Or the raw energy of the construction site, massive excavators chewing up the earth like prehistoric creatures, carpenters throwing up walls, electricians unspooling wire.

We may use our minds to translate and understand the world at large. But it is through our hands we experience its physicality and through our tools we often make sense of it. This exhibition explores the beauty and power and, yes, even the whimsy of everyday tools by using them in assemblages or modified them with various media. By placing them center stage, the artists presented here have given them meaning and emotional presence far beyond their everyday appeal.

Participating Artists: Bob Brady, Noa Charuvi, Kate Dodd, David Duskin, Gwyneth Leech, Greg Leshé, James Morris, Charles Stinson,  Bill Westheimer

Thank you to Midstate Construction for their exhibition support.

Panel Discussion for The Art of Materials

Sunday, June 9 from 1-2:30pm

Participating Artists:  Brooke Holve, Byron B. Kim, Bebe Kuhr, Rachel Leibman, Jonah Ward, Susan Wolsborn. Lisa Lightman, co-curator of the exhibition, will moderate the discussion.  There will be ample time for questions from the audience.

$10 members $15 non-Members

Hours:  Friday and Saturday 12-4pm