PLATTSBURGH — “The World is Her Canvas,” a group exhibition featuring the works of women artists, opens with a free gallery reception, Friday, April 18, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Strand Center for the Arts located at 23 Brinkerhoff St., Plattsburgh.
The exhibition, on display until Saturday, June 21, was curated by Strand Gallery and events manager Elsa Koop-Angelicola.
Participating artists include: Sarah Ashe, Alise Babbie, Zoé Bedell, Kt Falzetta (Dear Simon Photography), Valerie Hird, Susan Hoffer, Eve Petrashune and Michelle Vara.
“Overall the concept of this exhibition was to showcase in a group setting eight different artists of all different types of work,” Koop-Angelicola said.
“The aim of this exhibition was to showcase a variety of works ranging from painting, sculpture, mixed media, photography and ceramics. I as looking to showcase work that was powerful, dynamic, emotional, eye-catching to the community.”
Koop-Angelicola selected works based on her vision for the show.
“So, I went out and found all of the artists. I proposed an exhibition invitation to them, and they either accepted or declined and I ended up with the eight artists that I have now.”
There are approximately 50 works by the artists who create in upstate New York and Vermont.
“The age range is actually quite broad and that was something that I was intentionally looking for this show,” Koop-Angelicola said.
“The youngest is Alise. I don’t know how old she is, but I know she recently graduated college. I don’t know who the oldest one is, but a few of them are a little older. There is quite a broad range of ages, education, and different life experiences that drives them to make the work that they do. Upon selecting their work and talking with them and understanding the meaning behind a lot of their work, each of them in their own way whether it be personal or political or existential, they all have their own reason for creating the work that they do.”
ARTIST STATEMENTS
Sarah Ashe (fiber arts):
“During the pandemic, I left my painting practice and turned to stitchery. Creating with fabric and stitching it by hand provided a new intimacy to my art making during the days of isolation. Making marks with an array of embroidery thread and stitches was like a sketchbook study. The activity of looking, arranging and marking offered a kind of meditation/introspection, that has now become my art practice.
Learning about fabric /stitching led to discoveries such as Boro, the Japanese art of mending. This sparked interests in indigo dyed fabric. I grew some plants, processed them, tried dying… more successful was dying with onion skins, black walnuts, and rusty screws and bolts from my husband’s stash of old fasteners. Warm sunny days brought exploring cyanotypes, working with plants and their patterns. The family laces, linens and upholstery samples shared by friends along the ends of sleeves and hems from favorite clothes add special meaning to each creation.
The joy of taking a traditional woman’s craft…mastering stitches, taming renegade fabric, experimenting and breaking the rules…make the adventure endless and the journey vital.”
Alise Babbie (sculpture):
Paucity of solemnity, not sincerity
The real article
Asinine or esoteric?
Occurring… fortuitously
Not everyone’s predilection
Cultivated or kitsch? Definitely kitsch
Somewhere within the s p a c e — t i m e c o n t i n u u m
idiosyncratic style
Exuberant, with an OMINOUS air
A sentient snack
Existential monkey
A conventionalist maverick
A vacuous gaze, [one] might surmise
Guileless, introspective, epigrammatic
A. Genuine. Forgery.
Lexicomane (noun)
What am I trying to say?
A form of nostalgia, fatuous conceptualization, or the particular predilections of the artist. The atypical modus operandi yields an exuberant-yet-sinister air, which, surrendered to the elucidation of the viewer, is theirs to ascertain.
Zoé Bedell (ceramics):
The Vermont native crafts functional and decorative pottery at her studio in Stowe. Inspired by the creative freedom inherent in working with clay, her creations showcase exuberant experimentation in texture, color and movement. Each piece is made by hand using a combination of wheel throwing or hand building, often incorporating custom stamped elements, sculpted additions and textures. This process results in unique and complex creations crafted with care and curiosity.
Kt Falzetta (Dear Simon Photography)
“In the course of my life, I have always loved the freedom photography provides as an artistic medium. My own appreciation for the lines and forms of the female body, both clothed and otherwise, often translate to similar themes in nature. I use my camera to capture the strength, vulnerability, beauty and spirit of my models. I find that women and the Earth go hand in hand; to neglect one is to neglect the other. I primarily create through photography. I often use wild, outdoor spaces as both centerpiece and backdrop. My models are exclusively female and often anonymous which allows the concept of the feminine to take center stage over the individual. I greatly enjoy the pictures that I create; if others can share in the joy or mystery my images invoke, I feel even more blessed.”
Valerie Hird (abstract painter):
The visual artist creates a meditative world in which reality and the imagination are inextricably connected. She works across media, including painting, sculpture, drawing, animation, installation, and performance. Highly crafted and deeply imaginative, her practice is activated through travel and collaboration. Her work considers the history of narrative, cultural mythologies, analog technologies, and craft forms to create charged symbol-based artworks uniquely her own.
Hird’s multi-sensory work includes intricately layered, hand-painted book forms and automata using two-way mirrors, crank-operated sculptures, and hand-drawn animations accompanied by original soundtracks. To help realize the creative vision for her projects, Hird collaborates with composers, ‘cranky’ engineers, stage lighting designers, naturalists, and tattoo artists. Each work is a process of slow, skilled, passionate handcraft.”
Susan Hoffer (portrait painter):
“The human figure is central to my work for it enables me to explore what I feel most deeply. When I moved to the Adirondack Park in rural upstate NY, painting the figure became integral to adjusting to my new surroundings. By capturing real conversations with real people in real time, I am able to experience the deep introspection of those I have gotten to know, and they challenge my notion that rural identity has fixed characteristics. As society grapples with a changing cultural and political landscape, painting conversations feels to me as ordinary and extraordinary as breathing.
Often my encounters with others are serendipitous. Sometimes when listening, I think “it might be interesting to pursue this thought or idea in a painting.” I begin with thumbnail sketches, then transition to photographic references and detailed line-drawings that I overlay and arrange and rearrange in search of essential elements. Various kinds of light and a personal or imaginative setting provide the playground in which I experiment with ideas, marks, color, and texture. The titles suggest deeper meaning.
My work consists of small to large oil paintings on cradled hardwood. The physicality of the process is key to my practice. I freeze the paint to create thin skins that I stir into my paint palette for added texture, further mixing color and hue on the surface of the painted image. Several later paintings transition to simplified, outdoor-like spaces and vibrant and imaginative color relationships that appear otherworldly. As I move forward with my work, I am beginning to merge all these qualities— the human figure, interior and exterior spaces, light, expressive color—in large, experimental paintings of rural experience.”
Eve Petrashune (photography and mixed media):
“The foundation of my works is about maintaining a profound connection to nature and finding an understanding of life and death through it—- a way to ground myself before the hands of great unknowns, to process lessons that come with a lot of hurt, some of which will last a lifetime, and to reckon with how it feels when it feels as though you’ll be forever living in someone else’s shadow. Is the world our oyster? Yes, it can be, as long as we don’t let ourselves fall into the trap of allowing others to determine whether we are worthy of it.
My works are deeply personal. This collection is no exception.”
Michelle Vara (sculpture/multi-disciplinary):
After a long, hard four years, I struggle to find language to convey the depths of the challenges I have overcome. For me, the physicality of being human and spiritual growth has not been a passive trip. Although challenging, these years have offered many hard lessons. Science kept me alive, and art kept me psychologically safe. Art has provided me a place to work private thoughts out, refuge, peace, and safety. The physical act of placing emotion and thought into an artwork heals and calms, as it inspires soul growth and stability. In my daily art practice of meditation and using my hands, I strive to achieve coherency and maintain my sanity and grounding. Through artistic expression, I reach to communicate life’s complexities, hope, and miracles, which far exceed my verbal skills. My work seeks to stimulate the onlooker, offering connections to nuances of their personal, private experience.”