Material Matters:
Contemporary Art Meets Frank Lloyd Wright Petra Island, Mahopac, NY
October 7, 2017
Presented by
Silvermine Arts Center & Chilton & Chadwick Event Chaired by
Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia
Silvermine Arts Center
1037 Silvermine Road New Canaan, CT 06840 203.966.9700 www.silvermineart.org
Chilton & Chadwick
279 Sound Beach Avenue Old Greenwich, CT 06870 203.987.4789 www.chiltonandchadwick.com
Sponsors
Welcome to Petra Island home to two Frank Lloyd Wright masterpieces, designed in the 1950’s to stand where they are today. The guest house was built by Wright, while current owner, Joseph Massaro built the main house 10 years ago to exact specifications left by Wright. We thank Joe Massaro for generously offering his home to host a contemporary art exhibition/benefit for Silvermine. Jeffrey Mueller, Gallery Director, named the exhibition Material Matters inspired by Wright’s mastery of materials and sought artists who used materials from nature in a particularly creative and artistic way. We also thank PPG Paints, which unveiled the FLW color palette to celebrate the 150 anniversary, and Mercury Paint for sponsoring this event. Enjoy an immersion in art and architecture and make a toast to master architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
Hayes Gallery, Silvermine Arts Center, New Canaan, CT
Mark Andreas
Hanging In the Balance, 2004 Varnished Douglas fir, led counterweight, hand forged stainless steel 6’ x 6’ x 6’ Courtesy of the artist and Silvermine Galleries, New Canaan, CT
Andreas creates kinetic devices that interact with their environments. He calls them environmentally reactive sculpture. The goal is to have the environment impact and activate each sculpture. In turn, the sculpture’s activation and movement changes or interacts with the environment creating a dialogue between the environment and the artwork. At its heart, his work is based around the idea of change or the effect of change. Through the work, he explores how to define, see, sense, control or not control change. Because he is dealing with ideas or principles of change, time and time mechanisms are intrinsically interconnected with what he is exploring in his work.
www.reactivesculpture.com
Chiaozza
Installation of five Giro sculptures, 2017 Painted papier-mâchÊ Dimensions Variable Courtesy of the artist
Adam Frezza & Terri Chiao are an American artist duo whose work explores play and craft across a range of media, including painted sculpture, installation, collage and photography. Also known as CHIAOZZA (pronounced like "wowza" or "yowza"), Adam and Terri have exhibited their collaborative work in solo exhibitions in New York and Philadelphia, in numerous group shows around the US, and in a variety of art and design venues internationally. The studio was founded in 2011 and is based in New York City.
www.eternitystew.com
Carl D’Alvia
Huddle, 2017 Resin, paint 15”x15”x 9” Courtesy of the artist and Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson, NY Courtesy of the artist and Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York, NY (for loan of Robot)
D'Alvia works in a sculptural idiom that is decidedly hyper-visual, artisanal and history laden. He has developed proprietary sculptural processes that co-opt existing means of traditional and industrial production. Drawing on sources that include megalithic monuments, toy design and the Baroque style, the work encapsulates seemingly antithetical motifs such as minimal/ornate, industrial/handmade, comic/tragic, progress/destruction and attraction/repulsion. Reminiscent of the strategies of Jeff Koons, Katharina Fritsch, Richard Artschwager and John McCracken, these obscured and shrouded creatures have a deceptive quality and engage the viewer with their rich, dark humor.
www.dalvia.com
Roxanne Faber-Savage
black star/blue tube, 2013 Paper Lithograph with metallic paper chine colle 22" x 30" Courtesy of the artist and Silvermine Galleries, New Canaan, CT
As a multidisciplinary artist Faber Savage’s primary art form is printmaking. Her work employs low and high tech processes - from styrofoam to solar plates. The prints on exhibit are from FLOAT series. The muse for these mixed media paper lithograph prints is an inner tube: a donut shaped, flying saucer, corporeal body (like thing). Faber Savage loves the graphic oval shape and the notion that if you reach for it while swimming you will float, but if it pops or deflates, you are out of luck. She thinks about staying afloat everyday. The FLOAT series represents my way of conceptually and visually dealing with the challenges of staying afloat; artistically, financially, emotionally and physically.
www.roxanneprints.com
Sergio Gonzalez- Tornero
The Kaigani Haida invade Southern Alaska in the 19th Century, 2010 Oil on canvas 50” x 50” Courtesy of the artist and Silvermine Galleries, New Canaan, CT
In his work Gonzalez-Tornero presents a fusion of two distinct things: a complusion towards modernist form with abstract emotion, and a fascination wth the historic cultures of the Pacific Northwest. He responds to their art above all, which he chooses to see as a deeply spiritual and glorisouly formalisth view of life. This has developed after the first of many visits since 1994 to Haida Gwaii, “Land of the Haida,” also know as Queen Charlotte Islands, an acrhipelago a hundred miles off the coasts of British Columbia and Alaska. Gonzalez-Tornero likes to think that his work is an outsider’s painterly and ongoing romantic adventure into the spirit of the First Nations of the Northwest Coast of North America.
Leah Guadagnoli
Number One Song In Heaven, 2017 Acrylic, pumice stone, molding paste, Plexiglas, PVC, digital print on fabric, canvas, insulation board, and polyurethane foam on aluminum panel 60” x 38” x 3” Courtesy of the artist
Gaudagnoli makes three-dimensional wall-based constructions that balance geometry, nostalgia, and architecture into unfamiliar forms. Decades worth of history are distilled into each piece she makes. Pleasingly aligned positions are offset by patterns that I collect or reproduce - recalling interiors from the 80’s, 90’s, and Art Deco period. Visual components of the past, present, and future are combined and act as reminders of what we were, who we are, and who we might become.
www.leahguadagnoli.com
Marjorie Guyon
As One (Facing Left) Dye Sublimation mono print on aluminum, anchored in stone 12” x 9” Courtesy of the artist
When Guyon saw Romare Bearden’s Patchwork Quilt on 5, code for 5th floor of MOMA, she was 4. She entered the Museum as a pale, intent child and left as a 2000 year old black woman - Remedios the Beauty on her Bed of Dreams. And so at 4, Guyon understood collage - the possibility of blending two, of becoming new. At five, she became Rousseau’s Sleeping Gypsy. My dog Carlo was the lion. Many nights spent under the imagined moon - tucked away in childhood’s bed - a thousand souls whispering in native tongue. Streetlights through the window 89-10 Whitney Avenue 2nd floor. Come out and play. The two pieces in this exhibition are the first in a completely new body of work-dye sublimation monoprints on aluminum anchored in stone.
www.marjorieguyon.com
Cody Hoyt
Tall Twisted Box, 2015 Ceramic 29.5” × 24” × 24” Courtesy of the artist and Patrick Parrish Gallery, New York, NY
Trained as a printmaker and painter, Brooklyn-based Cody Hoyt has recently shifted his focus to faceted, hand-marbled ceramics. “I’ve been bringing elements of my drawings into the 3D realm with ceramics,” Hoyt has said of the transition. “It allows me to further examine the role that process plays in my work.” Inspired by a range of multimedia references, from sculptures by Ken Price and John Mason, to Japanese Nerikomi pottery, to the Memphis Group, founded by Ettore Sottsass, Hoyt’s work blends detailed, geometric form with function.
www.codyhoyt.tumblr.com
Caroline Larsen
Crossstich Mountain, 2017 Oil on canvas 34” x 34” Courtesy of the artist in collaboration with Silvermine and Curator Paul Efstathiou
Larsen’s paintings at first glance resemble woven fabrics but upon closer examination reveal themselves as elaborate oil paintings. Her work plays heavily with pattern, decoration and the ornamental with an attentiveness to color and it’s role of imparting feeling. In her series of mountain paintings she explores light and shadow incorporating luminous color gradations. The snowy mountain landscape were inspired by the Rocky Mountains. The jagged peaks of the terrain cast shadows upon the topography creating shapes that dart the imagery between representational and abstract when rendered in my woven technique.
www.carolinelarsen.com
Barbara Marks
Recollection, No. 68 (Stony Creek), 2017 Acryla gouache, flashe, and graphite on gessoed panel 12� x 12� Courtesy of the artist and Silvermine Galleries, New Canaan, CT
Marks uses color to create space. Her paintings and drawings are rooted in observation - they are a visual journal of the situations she find herself in, every day, no matter where she is. For her subject matter, Marks look to the ordinary and the local. She is currently working on a long-range project - Recollection - a series of smallish, square, colorful paintings on panel and on paper. The project began a little more than a year ago, and she has completed 100 paintings to date. The series is growing into an aggregate composed of hundreds of small scale paintings that, when installed as a whole, will assume a monumental.
www.barbarammarks.com
Christian Maychack
Compound Flat #56, 2016 Epoxy, clay and wood 10.75” x 14.5” x 13.5” Courtesy Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson, NY
Maychack characterizes his work as operating on two tracks: the physical space of sculpture and the pictorial space of painting. Materials function as structure or support or provide for illusionistic space. The combinations of these approaches and materials allow for shifts in perception, both physically and cognitively. In Compound Flat #56, a thin wooden strip curves and shifts line-like, sitting atop sculpted white epoxy inflected with color. Simultaneously, the strip acts as a support and link by holding an adjacent sculpted form to the right. Form and function are held in equal balance.
www.baileygallery.com/artists/christian-maychack
Jason Middlebrook
14 Ways To Get Your Groove Back, 2017 Acrylic on Maple 89.25” x 19.25” x 1.25” Courtesy Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson, NY
Middlebrook’s planks (from either vertical or horizontal cross sections of trees) bridge divides between painting and sculpture, surface and ornament, and point abstraction back to its roots in naturally occurring pattern. His paintings progress radially and radiantly, mimicking their biological substrate. They reference emergent processes like honeycombs, crystal lattices, the buildup of meander scars in a changing watercourse, and of course the growth of the trees themselves. In tracing or crossing the rings of a tree, Middlebrook’s lines describe its life, and expand to fill the space of its existence. One is reminded of Kim Novak in Vertigo, tracing her real and imagined lives on a section of sequoia. Seasons build upon seasons, and behind each line is another line, another strata, another afterimage. To quote one of Middlebrook’s own titles: “inside each tree is another tree.” www.baileygallery.com/artists/jason-middlebrook
Leah Piepgras
Portal II, 2016 Wood , plaster, mirror, charcoal, motor 10” x 13.5” x 13.5” Courtesy of the artist and Grin Gallery, Providence, RI
Leah Piepgras unveils a new body of work that deals with how subtle shifts in a conscious state affect the relationship with the seen and unseen environment. Piepgras’ process is rooted in the basic human need to navigate what we don't understand and present an alternative reality. All of the pieces are made of multi-tudal components and repetitive processes. These pieces (the eyes, ears, mirrors, carbon) work together individually to dictate the final shape and installation. Crystalline forms become a variation of a thought structure, honed and purified, distilled down to a tangible manifestation.
www.grinprovidence.com/leah-piepgras
Esther Ruiz
Universal Thought, 2015 Cement, neon, quartz crystal 7” x 7” x 8” Courtesy of the artist
Inspired by space operas, pop culture, geometry and the setting sun, Esther creates objects that operate simultaneously as miniature landscapes from a distant future (“A planet with neon cosmic dust rings and a triangular shaped moon, which align perfectly as they slip away from the sun…”) and actual size sculptures informed by the family of Minimalism. The cylinder, the semicircle, the triangle, and other Euclidean forms are combined into colorful and expressive freestanding sculpture. She tops cast cement columns with Plexiglas triangles, neon arches and fractured geodes in a way that leaves viewers thinking of (among other things) Dan Flavin, Pink Floyd and the stark beauty of the desert.
www.estherruiz.com
Eric Shaw
Change the Water, not the Goldfish, 2016 Acrylic on canvas 38” x 32” Courtesy of the artist in collaboration with Silvermine and Curator Paul Efstathiou
The initial point of my process starts with digesting the experience of graphic design in the city on a daily basis, from truck logos to signage. Through processing and reflection, I create digital sketches. Wherever I may be, on the the street or in the studio, I sketch. I am continuously challenged by attempting to draw a straight line with my pointer finger on the screen. Just as paint has limitations, I am interested in the limitations of the application used. Reflecting on image editing tools, such as copying, pasting, and scale shifts; I build a system of motifs and color relationships that suggest continuous change and movement. Each painting begins with it’s own set of arbitrary rules, that build into a unique system. The back and forth between photographing the work as I progress and drawing upon the photograph, creates a fluidity between the digital and analogue in my painting language.
www.ericjshaw.com
Joseph Smolinksi
Open Water # 9, 2017 Ink, acrylic, and graphite on paper 25� x 38� Courtesy of the artist
My work examines human interventions in the landscape. This pursuit has led me to investigate communication networks, the production and distribution of energy and oil, and the industrial agriculture infrastructure. I am interested in how these industries shape our view of what is called the natural environment as well as physically shape our planet. My current series of works titled Open Water consider our dependence on water and the potential energy it holds. Considering current events, these bodies of water hold the capacity for innovation or tragedy. I am interested in presenting this landscape as simultaneously beautiful and ominous.
www.smolinskistudio.com