TRACE/MATTER at FIVE MYLES GALLERY
OCTOBER 10 – NOVEMBER 8, 2015
OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 5-8PM
CURATED BY CHARLOTTA KOTIK
ARTISTS: RUTH HARDINGER, KARA ROONEY
THE EXHIBITION:
Trace and Matter are words endowed with a vastly rich and varied significance, metaphorically and figuratively. So is the work of Ruth Hardinger and Kara Rooney, the artists presented in this exhibition.
While utilizing the plethora of techniques and materials, both choose to express their ideas through the exploration of three dimensional, or sculptural idioms, with drawing, photography, digital collage or stone wool being an integral part of the work. There is an open ended dialogue of technologies and materials enacted, of past and present experience; there are traces of the multiple processes and substances used to create individual pieces. While some of these might be obscured by the ongoing conceptual development of individual works, the physical energy exerted in the shaping of the matter selected to embody these primary ideas exerts an often palpable presence. Interest in quotidian materials, up to date technologies, linguistics, past cultures, and environmental concerns, all inform the work, while demanding a reevaluation of our understanding of current artistic processes.
THE ARTISTS:
RUTH HARDINGER, artist statement:
Material choices and environmental activism drive my current work. My sculptures, entitled Envoys, are built with concrete and cardboard. They reference totems that could suggest embedded messages from legends or experiences to levels of greenhouse gases. These works-on-paper and sculpture invite a view of earthliness with awareness of its enchantment coupled with our current ecological harmful conditions.
A cluster of Split Envoys, standing aligned as a group or reference to community, is influenced by my interests in pre-Columbian and other ancient artifacts. Although these sculptures reach back in time they are comprised of today’s highly common industrial materials. The Envelope / Envelop graphite works-on-paper are paired together as if in flux. Graphite, a pure carbon, an element of carbon-based life, is a symbol of life forces I aim to express. – Ruth Hardinger
KARA ROONEY, artist statement:
On Moving Farther Away from Speech, or Hindsight is Never Twenty/Twenty, highlights the interactive subjectivity that signifies memory recall, not from a linguistic perspective, which is often unattainable, but rather from the standpoint of visual semaphore. Through the complex act of cueing, the interaction between object, scrim, and digital collage, along with the sculptural resin supports that make up the works, engender a dialogue of ever shifting fragments. The openly interpretative nature of poetry, along with the attendant metaphors of water, air and ice, visible in the reflective surfaces and photographic shards, liken this experience to recollection in real time, where the notion of fixed and stable forms is continually disrupted without ever being fully dispersed. Like stanzas in a poem the objects float in space, undeniable in the physicality of their presence, but like their literary counterparts, subject to the same slippage of interpretative device—the breakdown between memory, linguistic interaction, and actual event—that constitutes the dialectical and warring relationship between our rational and emotional minds. – Kara Rooney
GALLERY HOURS:
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558 St Johns Place
Brooklyn, NY 11238