BURST
EMILY PAYNE
EMILY PAYNE : BURST
I am able to take a wire line and go into the air and define the air without stealing from anyone. A line can enclose and define space while letting the air remain air. - Ruth Asawa
Emily Payne: Burst September 1 - October 30, 2020
Front Cover: Emily Payne: Flare, 2020, graphite, book boards and book cloth, 26 x 20� Back Cover: Installation Shot, Emily Payne: Burst, Seager Gray Gallery, September, 2020
Photo Credits: Dana Davis Installation Shots: Douglas Sandberg
Direct inquiries to: Seager Gray Gallery 108 Throckmorton Avenue Mill Valley, CA 94941 415-384-8288 seagergray.com
All rights reserved. Catalog can be purchased through the gallery for $20 plus handling and shipping. Email us at art@seagergray.com
Pine 4, 2019, graphite on book boards, 10 x 10�
EMILY PAYNE : BURST Occasionally an artist comes along who expands your understanding of what art can be and allows you to see the world in new ways. Emily Payne is just such an artist. Her concern is not with just making a single work, but to create a body of work that explores the interplay between 2D and 3D, light and shadow and the way an object can energize and interact with the space around it. In February of 2018, Payne went for a month long residency at The Vermont Studio Center. As she has done in other residencies, Payne challenged herself to arrive with no preconceived notion about what she would do there. After going to the library to gather inspiration from Calder and Louise Bourgeois, she took a walk in the cold in seemingly colorless Vermont. The road was lined with the spindly long needles of pines and she spotted the bright forms of branches with the needles splayed out in the open air. “Out of a sense of slight desperation, I picked a bunch of them up and carried them into my studio and displayed them at various distances from the wall. “The sun began to come into the studio and the shadows that the pine needles cast became my starting point.”
Pine 2, 2019, graphite on book boards, 12 x 12”
“I could see that the reason I was drawn to these forms was not only the color but the extraordinary wiriness of them,” said Payne. “I began to see them not just as objects but the shadows themselves became a beautiful drawing that nature was creating. I could see them everywhere.” The combination of the wire sculptures in various sizes and the negative space of their shadows drawn in graphite on Payne’s preferred substrate of book covers has transformed the gallery into an installation that is both fascinating and deeply satisfying. The title of the exhibition, originally scheduled for April is “Burst,” which at the time referred to the burst of life in the quiet winter, the burst of the splayed needles from their central core and the burst of inspiration that they offered. “Now it feels like without changing the title, its meaning has expanded,” said the artist, “It feels like we are all about to burst. I think that there is a need for a more tactile experience, connection with nature and a sense of the interconnection of all things.
Big Flare, 2020, graphite on book boards, book cloth, 48 x 36” (left) Verge, 2020, steel wire, 39 x 13 x 3”
Installation Shot, Emily Payne: Burst, Seager Gray Gallery, September, 2020
Right: Hopscotch, 2020, graphite on book boards, 64 x 18” Far Right: Sway, 2020, steel wire, 61 x 9 x 10”
Bough Installation, 2020, steel wire, book covers on book boards, sumi ink
Limb, 2020, graphite, book boards and book cloth, 24 x 45�
Port, 2020, graphite, book boards and book cloth, 48 x 72 x 5�
Awash, 2020, steel wire, 60 x 5 x 16�
Flush, 2020, graphite, book boards and book cloth, 60 x 30�
Flare, 2020, graphite, book boards and book cloth, 26 x 20�
Tinder, 2020, steel wire, 22 x 9 x 3�
Plume, 2020, steel wire, 21 x 12 x 5�
Flare 2, 2020, book boards, book cloth, 26 x 18�
Teem, 2020, graphite on book boards, 36 x 36�
Tresses, 2020, steel wire, 60 x 54 x 9�
Bough, 2020, steel wire, 60 x 54 x 9�
Anchor, 2020, graphite on book boards, 36 x 48�
Burgeoning, 2020, graphite, book boards and book cloth, 24 x 16�
Pine 10, 2019, graphite on book boards, 30 x 30�
Snag, 2020, graphite, book boards and book cloth, 20 x 40�
Snagged, 2020, steel wire, found material, 38 x 8 x 4.25�
Installation Shot, Emily Payne: Burst, Seager Gray Gallery, September, 2020
Mooring, 2020, book covers on book boards, 48 x 60�
Inline, 2020, steel wire, found material, 14 x 2.5 x 2.5�
Flare, 2020, graphite, book boards and book cloth, 26 x 20�
Sap, 2020, graphite, book boards and book cloth, 14 x 18�
Flame, 2020, book boards, book cloth, 12 x 12�
Black and White Pine, 2020, graphite on book boards, 10 x 10�
Pine 5, 2019, graphite on book boards, 12 x 12�
EMILY PAYNE STATEMENT As a painter and sculptor, I draw inspiration from natural forms such as seeds, tree branches and feats of nature like bird nests and spider webs. The repeated forms I paint and sculpt are often serene and elemental in feel and explore themes of dimensionality, motion and dynamics in space. My interest in site-specific public art is two fold: first, I seek opportunities to place art where it is accessible to a broader audience, one that is not necessarily seeking art in museums or galleries. Second, I see the role that art can play in activating a public space when the aesthetic choices made by the artist integrate the architecture and function of the space itself. Art that is integral to a public setting has the potential then to positively affect how people perceive their environment, by either calling attention to the physical space around them or by causing them to feel a sense of wonder, inspiration or ease without even knowing quite why.