For Immediate Release:
Richmond, VA – artspace is pleased to present five new gallery shows, featuring collage, sculpture and drawings by Jonathan Lee, a group exhibition by Diuguid, Duggan, Lovell, Smith, and Van Gorder, sculptural clothes by Belgin Yucelen, visionary drawings by Milk River Arts artist, Albert Costanzo, and works in all media by artspace Artist Members. Exhibition dates are July 27 through August 19, 2018. An Opening Reception for the Artists will take place on Friday, July 27, 2018, from 6:00-9:00pm, and artist talks by Jonathan Lee and Belgin Yucelen will begin at 7:00 pm. This event will be Free and Open to the Public. A closing artist talk, featuring Diuguid, Duggan, Lovell, Smith, and Van Gorder, and Albert Constanzo, will take place Sunday, August 19, 2018 at 2:00pm. This event will also be Free and Open to the Public.
On view in the Main Gallery will be Secret Histories, collage, sculpture and drawings by Jonathan Lee. “Secret histories lie within discarded objects, documents, and ephemera,” Lee writes. “They are marked by exchanges and interactions of unknown consequence: a decision or gesture, an emotion or undertaking, a memory or moment with the potential to trigger another.” Lee says these materials, both mundane and monumental, have the power to reveal things about our past, present, and future not just because of what they are but who we are. “My work investigates memory’s impact on the creation and analysis of images, objects, and information,” he continues. “By altering the original form and function of the materials used, I explore how visual information is interpreted and renewed through individuals, communities, and systems of power.” The collages, drawings, and sculptures in this exhibition are a collection of Lee’s personal and communal experiences, a product of experimentation, repetition, limitation, and circumstance.
The Frable Gallery will feature (We)eds, a fiber and embroidery group exhibition by Diuguid, Duggan, Lovell, Smith, and Van Gorder. Katherine Diuguid’s “Weeds Collection” explores the manipulation of traditional techniques and materials by utilizing metal “weeds,” gilt cast offs of tarnished and damaged threads and wires to create delicate embroidered floral slips reminiscent of the beautiful botanical illustrations from the Victorian era. Gabrielle Duggan works in the context of a rich tradition. “I stretch ‘women’s work’ to restore power to marginalized subjects. ‘Cottonweed’ is a hand woven, digital jacquard piece that uses cotton as a lens through which contemporary power structures can be considered.” Precious Lovell’s “Time’s Effing Up!” is a continuation of her “Warrior Women of the African Diaspora” theme. It was inspired by Anita Hill’s sexual harassment testimony and resulting interrogation during the confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas’ nomination for Supreme Court Justice in 1991. “Through symbolic clothing created to establish and maintain the human connection, which has been embroidered with text,” Lovell says, “it is my intent that viewers will reevaluate this event in light of the current environment of political sexual misconduct.” Shelley Smith’s ”The World is Too Full” series is digital print and hand embroidery on polyester satin. The series is “an expression of the vast capability of resilience found innate among us all. The source images of trees grown wild in a yard unkempt were taken with an iPhone 5 and reference the strength of a weed left alone to grow strong with only the resources around it,” Smith writes. “The world often seems too full and so much of life is holding joy in one hand and sorrow in the other. These two experiences can exist simultaneously and at their intersection is where hope is found. The light of the moon is visible even when the orb itself is obscured.” Sally Van Gorder is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice investigates the intersections of identity, self- representation and social structures. Using a wide range of media and systems of collection, documentation and classification, Van Gorder creates work that addresses maintenance, impermanence, and autobiography in domestic environments.
Belgin Yucelen’s “Clothes from the Past Installation” will be on view in the Helena Davis Gallery. Yucelen is a sculptor, an installation artist and a printmaker. She studied sculpture at the Florence Accademia D’Arte in Florence, University of Colorado Boulder, Art Students League of Denver and Scottsdale Art School. Her work has been represented in private collections and exhibitions. Belgin states, “My art is a way to cherish the present moment. It is a response to specific issues, current events and disappearing moral values. I speak out on behalf of children in war, women, refugees.” She continues, “I aim to create aesthetically beautiful, compelling and thought provoking art in a simple and quiet manner. Art needs to be beautiful, but beauty can come from ugliness as long as it is presented poetically.”
In the smallspace Gallery, Milk River Arts presents Albert Costanzo’s “Pentagon Papers,” visionary drawings. Pentagon Papers is a group of drawings dating from 1983-84, when artist Albert Costanzo was in his early twenties. Feeling anxious about his own future, Costanzo salvaged his dad’s work papers from the Pentagon out of the trashcan to map diagrams of the future. Imaginative plans for futuristic travel and technology are found alongside more familiar renderings of passenger jets, freight trains, and imaginary roads he created to take him places. Milk River Arts is a creative community where the exchange between artists with and without special needs inspires personal and professional growth.
The Suzanne Foley Gallery will show CLOSER – the telling detail, work in all media by artspace Artist Members.
Gallery hours are Tuesday through Sunday from 12-4pm. Please contact the gallery administrator at artspaceorg@gmail.com, or phone the gallery at 804-232-6464 for additional information. The gallery is located at Zero East 4th Street in Richmond, Virginia 23224, with a second door at 31 E. 3rd St., and online at www.artspacegallery.org.