April 3 - 28, 2019
Opening Reception:
Friday, April 5, 6 pm - 8:30 pm
POETRY READING
Saturday, April 27, 2 pm
Free and open to the public
Alan Albert, Susan Nisenbaum Becker, Aimée Sands, and Gary Whited
Lesley Cohen
”Salvaged Spaces”
Vivian Pratt
”Drawn in Space”
Larry Volk
”Visual Larder”
Lesley Cohen: “Salvaged Spaces”
In my exhibition, I peel back the layers of our everyday world to explore what’s hidden beneath. Like searching for an elusive memory or a connection to an untraceable place, we may find only a small fragment of something that was once a larger experience. These associations can act as a trigger for a memory and bring us back to a particular place and time. My process acknowledges what exists while recovering, examining, and integrating what has been left behind.
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Each drawing highlights my desire to create a conversation that occurs on both an aesthetic and conceptual level. Some of my compositions consist of multiple fragments, joined together to make new wholes. At times, these fragments are textured, semitransparent or dense, impenetrable geomorphic shapes. My work can serve as a metaphor for retrieving the essence of things, the notion of a whole that may be made up of seemingly disconnected, disparate parts. Though all memories continuously shift and morph, drawing enables me to give dimension and definition to them. It is a way for me to somewhat pin my discoveries into a metaphorical shadow box. And there they are.
My drawings are worlds unto themselves. No single drawing is an answer in itself, but part of a larger search. I respond to my associations, abstracting and extending logic, realigning and layering meaning as I draw.
Although I work with a limited set of elements, devoid of noticeable color, and divested of familiar imagery, my work is a network of inseparable relationships all held in a complex, delicate balance. I am intent on bringing something to my work that doesn’t fit… something that’s a bit strange. That’s the irrational part of my work. I am frequently mystified by the results of my process. And these outcomes inspire my next body of work.
Vivian Pratt: “Drawn in Space”
Drawing is a meditation for me. Using pencil and paper I create abstractions, always with reference to the natural world. But I need more.
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Substituting wire for pencil and shaping paper or cloth over the wire, my process comes alive; now the abstractions are dimensional. The shapes connect to the world around me as the wire alludes to line – line drawn in space.
Larry Volk: “Visual Larder”
The works in this exhibition continue my exploration of memory, family history and identity. The creation of these works relies upon archives of documents and photographs that were preserved and passed on to me by my family members. Photographic prints along with objects and ephemera are frequently the materials used for preserving family histories and memories.
My work as a visual artist, however, is born out of questions rather than simple documentation and recollection. Often, I strive to inform the viewer’s experience of these images through my manipulation and construction of them into larger composite forms that move them beyond personal recall and nostalgia. A. D. Coleman, critic and curator of photography, refers to this approach as the “directorial mode," wherein “what the photograph encodes is a perspective, a viewpoint, an opinion - even possibly, a fiction” 1.