Summer 2010 Exhibition
May 27th to August 12th, 2010
Second Floor Galleries:
Vanitas: Contemporary Reflections
Candy De Pew, Myra Mimlitsch Gray, Katherine Kaminsky, Audrey Hasan Russel, and Gae Savannah
First Floor Galleries:
En route series, featuring artists Andrea Gaydos Landau and Atticus Adams
Public Opening: Thursday, May 27, 2010, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Throughout the first and second floor galleries the Philadelphia Art Alliance (PAA) will present three exhibitions that explore a multiplicity of craft-based materials and approaches; one focusing on the theme of Vanitas for a contemporary audience; and two solo exhibitions that explore the use of fiber and metal as a sculptural installation. All exhibitions are organized by Melissa Caldwell, Director of Exhibitions at the PAA.
An opening reception will be held on May 27th from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Second Floor Galleries:
Vanitas: Contemporary Recflections
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 De Pew, Myra Mimlitsch Gray, Katherine Kaminsky, 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.
 Artists Myra Mimlitsch Gray (above) and Katherine Kaminsky (right) appropriate symbols that were traditional to the Vanitas theme, even containing certain standard elements from its history, such as elaborate tableware, skulls, and flowers. Gray focuses on the supports for fine dining and decadent foods through her treatment of such items as a classical salver or an escargot dish. The distortion and exaggeration of these concrete items appear as fleeting and ephemeral as the objects they were intended to support. Kaminsky uses the classical symbolic meaning of flowers from 17th century still life painting. Using sugar and other materials such as plaster, her flower arrangements and imitation of taxidermy in the presentation of animal heads has a direct allusion to mortality that the artist describes as “an exploration a relationship between a healthy fulfillment and a sickly excess.“
Themes of nostalgia and remembrance characterize the glass sculptures of Audrey Hasen Russell (left) whose works are reminiscent of the small town in Eastern Tennessee where she was raised and where her father works in functional glass. Still-lifes composed from traditional bowl forms are turned into sculptural objects that reference the idea of a false preciousness and a desire to return to childhood, ultimately referencing the transience of life itself.
 In the work of Candy De Pew (right) and Gae Savannah, excess is a celebration. Candy De Pew’s work will include a live performance, a variation of the tableau vivant (living picture) that incorporates porcelain drawings and bone china works visually woven with vinyl wall graphics, digitally printed fabrics, and models. De Pew states, “these ‘objects’ and the images they create grow out of a continued, almost obsessive, interest in the act of decorating as a sculptural departure point coupled with mystical portrayals of feminine beauty.”
 Feminine beauty is also the subject of Gae Savannah’s “cakes” (left). Overflowing with bright transparent materials lavished piled onto tables, these massive sculptural objects represent the results of over-consumption. Savannah describes these as, “frothed up castles of delusion: hyperbolic princess-lands that ooze the saccharine, nuclear-pink glow of the girl toy aisles in FAO Schwarz. With Nabokov’s poshlust, (gaudy, contrived beauty,) the Cakes embody both entrancing appearances, and the intoxication they kindle.” Savannah’s work indulges in the spectacle of “prettiness” while referencing its ephemeral nature.
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First Floor Solo Exhibitions:
En Route series: Atticus Adams (metals) & Andrea Landau (fiber)
Atticus Adams: Transcendental
 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.”
Adams studied and received several degrees from several institutions including Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT; Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI; Tidewater Community College, VA Beach, VA; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Regent University, VA Beach, VA - Film Studies 1987; West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV - BS Degree 1985. Exhibitions include: Atticus Adams, Europ'art Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA 2007; Joyland, Mineral Spring Lofts, Pawtucket, RI 2004; Space and Place, Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, Pittsburgh PA 2008; Pinky Swear, FE Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA 2008; Thread From Body to Soul, Borelli-Edwards Galleries, Lawrenceville, PA 2008; Then and Now, The 97th Annual Associated Artists of Pittsburgh Show; The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA 2007.
Andrea Gaydos Landau: Control Point
 Focused on fiber for her installations, Landau is interested in exploring materials that confronts the viewer with an experience that is both spatial and visceral. By using materials that have a mundane and residual nature is suggestive of a process of addition, division and expansive megalomania, which has its own internal logic. Landau states, “I want to evoke a visual slippage from accumulation to deterioration and from beauty to base, all to blur the distinction between object and subject. In compiling silent information, an accrual of bits reveals information of a new order, maybe an entirely new object or material, or exposes the subtle possibility of an alternative cosmology.”
Andrea Gaydos Landau received her BFA in Fiber and Material Studies from The Cleveland Insitute of Art and her MFA from the Cranbook Academy of Art. Andrea has shown in several exhibitions outside of school including the ‘First Look’ exhibition at The Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art in Peekskill, NY, featuring graduating, immerging artists from across the country. She also participated in a group show called ‘Delinquent Systems’ at Warren Robbins Gallery at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI. Her work is also in the DaimlerChrysler Services permanent collection. Currently, she lives in Philadelphia and works at the Fabric Workshop and Museum as a Project Construction Technician.
Images (from top):
Myra Mimlitsch Gray, Compote, 2006. Silver; Courtesy of the artist
Katherine Kaminski, And then it just was…, 2007. Plaster, silk flowers, multimedia; Courtesy of the artist.
Andrea Hasen Russell, Glass Rock System, 2008. Found and hand blown glass, multimedia; Courtesy of the artist.
Candy De Pew, Septa (detail), 2009. Porcelain and enamel; Courtesy of the artist
Gae Savannah, Vanitas (detail), 2009. Fabric, cellophane, mixed media; Courtesy of the artist.
Atticus Adams, Castles in the air, 2009. Coated aluminum mesh, wire, monofilament, rubber mesh; Courtesy of the artist.
Andrea Landau, One Night Sky (detail), 2010; Fiber; Courtesy of the artist. |
