Casa Frela :: eARTh

eARTh

3 sub-albums and 1 image in this album

To celebrate Earth Day and Spring 2008, Casa Frela Gallery presents the group installation eARTh; near and far. eARTh features quilts, paintings, photographs, and art-to-wear by Nadine M. Cuffy, Noreen Deen Dresser and Kenneth R.S.T. Vick. Each artist has been inspired by natural and scientific phenomenon: biology, topography, and the process of erosion. Their creations capture our imagination and portray the world from a vantage point that allows us to see beauty through science.

Art has always been a means of expressing and commenting on the world around us, and is valued both for the wealth of information it provides and the unique beauty it presents us. The great scientist Albert Einstein said, "True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist. I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.² Each artist in this group installation has reinterpreted the internal and the physical environment through the observation of scientific phenomena.

Dr. Nadine M. Cuffy is a New York State licensed clinical psychologist who has re-invented herself as a fiber artist. Cuffy¹s artwork successfully exploits the quilting stitch to create subtlety and depth in a manner unique to the quilted form. By manipulating two and three dimensional design elements, Nadine transforms fascinating, well-executed compositions into commanding sculptural relief. A self-taught fiber artist, Nadine¹s work reveals her comfort with, and love for traditional and the contemporary art quilts. Varied ethnic motifs, bold color, compelling design, and sense of play characterize her creations. The combination of multicultural design elements is found throughout her body of work as well. Most pieces are richly embellished, hand appliquéd and quilted. A variety of different textiles are used, including fabrics from all over the world in addition to the artist¹s own hand-painted and hand-dyed fabric.

Noreen Deen Dresser presents an internal artistic vantage point of atmospheric forces that serve as fertile ground for a discussion of our boundaries with the global community. Her painting series "Edges in Eternity² incorporates artistic research and personal commentary from scholars involved in theological and ethical reflection. The paintings juxtapose passages of atmospheric light, dark spatial expanse, and a multitude of surfaces. They are a forum to discuss our sense of boundaries and place. Dresser is interested in how the approach to sacred text traditions may shed insight into the complicated moral terrain of global warming, shared and private resources within the larger world. A number of the works in this series are collaborative pieces. Each participant has an opportunity to see the work and collaborate on a response about the shared project. The artist is concerned with the relationship of a work of art to meaning in our community life.

Kenneth R.S.T. Vick captures the process of erosion in his Sub-Text series of photographs. Inside the New York City subway system, natural collages are created by chance from advertising posters, stickers, magic-marker graffiti, and placards of all kinds. Applied and removed by myriad hands, some of these layers are very old. As old images are ripped away and decay with time; new ones impose themselves before the layers disappear forever. The strange beauty of these accidental artworks fascinates Vick and compels him to mine their meanings and bring them to light. With no single voice, they still manage to speak volumes about our society and how the different worlds we inhabit collide. In each collage, the different words in the various images speak in a seemingly clear and direct way. But if you look collectively at all of the words in all of the images of each collage, they tell you something else, something that coheres together unpredictably in spite of its wildly disparate parts. Kenneth Vick¹s photography preserves this visual conversation, occurring through time, right under a stairwell.

eARTh; near and far runs from Thursday, April 17 through Thursday, July 17, 2008. Please join us for an opening artist reception on Thursday, April 17, 2008, from 5PM to 8PM.