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Process features works focusing on the process of making. In each work, the artist’s hand is clearly present and celebrated.
Shahla Friberg’s faceted creations are conceived and formed through a meditative, organic process. She cuts varied pieces of glass into shards, some mirrored, others colored, ultimately connecting them to one another at differing angles using molten solder and copper foil, similar to a traditional stained glass technique. Imagining rigid materials, like metal and glass, finally assembled into something gracefully fluid seems counterintuitive to the inherent properties of these materials, however, Friberg’s comfort with her unyielding medium renders the outcome as effortless as her process.
Catherine Howe insists that her paintings, which appear to reference 17th-century still life paintings, are not about representation or narrative; rather, she says they are exercises in the evocative power of painting as a material. What appear to be flora, figures, and foods dissolve into abstract flurries of brush marks and fields of commingled colors when observed closely. The painted surfaces vary widely in paint application, with some areas thinly glazed or quickly sketched, and others so thick they appear to be in relief. Howe’s palette is known to be strong and vibrant, though not without eerie contrasts; her technique includes splatters, spills, and the scraping away of paint. American, based in New York, New York.
“My work involves an investigation into extant negative forces in our lives, and to what degree the phenomenological ramifications of stress shape us physically, mentally, and emotionally. The formal language present in this analysis is based on a material study of geologic processes translated into ceramic and mixed media objects, often referencing historical vessel form. I seek a purposeful link between macrocosmic environmental change, and interruptions in our otherwise routine existence.
The foundation of this exploration is a desire to uncover the sublime in these moments of incongruity; the rush of presence into experience that might otherwise remain banal and ordinary, brought on by perceived inconvenience. My work asserts that it is possible for our daily vexations to illuminate the power of the present moment – something we all too often fail to notice.”
Rogan Brown’s work is inspired by the hidden worlds modern science reveals to us, whether it’s the intricacy of microscopic cellular structures, the mesmerizing diversity of the bacterial realm or the surreal beauty of nature at the quantum scale.
Paper embodies the paradoxical qualities that we see in nature: its fragility and durability, its strength and delicacy. Paper cutting as a traditional folk art form is characterized by its accessibility and simplicity and Brown both exploit and subvert those qualities in the work he makes. His ultimate aim is to remind us of the sublime beauty and strangeness of the natural world that surrounds us but which is hidden from our eyes.
