Nigralle, by Deborah Barlow
Mixed media on wood panel, 36 x 36″
Circulation, by Kay Canavino
Digital Archival Print, 13 x 28″
Limantour, by Ramah Commanday
Ceramic, 18 x 21″
I’m so happy to be showing my work with two artist friends whose work I admire greatly, Kay Canavino and Ramah Commanday. The idea of exhibiting with them seemed so appealing to me several years ago, and now we have a show that will travel to several locations over the next few years. The first venue for UNDER, ABOVE, EVERYWHERE: CELEBRATING MATERIALITY, will be at the Christopher Brodigan Gallery at Groton School in Massachusetts. Details about the show are below as well as a brief description of the exhibit and the artists.
I love seeing my paintings in conversation with Kay’s other worldly photographs and Ramah’s earthy vessels. My only regret is that I will not be able to join in at the artist reception on April 17. I am needed in Italy where my new grandson Rhodes is making his way onto the planet. That is its own sacred celebration of materiality after all.
Show Description
The digital and the virtual have deeply penetrated contemporary culture and consciousness, often resulting a breezy disregard for the materiality that is so fundamental to life in the multiverse. The primary elements–air, space, water, minerals and fire, so essential to our sense of ourselves and the reality we share–are easily overlooked in the rush towards the sophisticated, the cerebral, the ephemeral. And yet materiality is the very counterpoint so desperately needed to bring a sense of balance to lives that are increasingly lived in artificial realities.
In this exhibit, three artists—a painter, a photographer and a ceramicist—comingle their individual methods and media to assemble a multi-dimensional celebration of the glorious materiality that is everywhere in the universe. Deborah Barlow engages with space and the atmosphere as a sourcebook for nonrepresentational paintings that speak to the expansiveness beyond the earth’s domain. Kay Canavino has developed an ingenious method of photographing the enigmatic and beguiling waterscapes that populate under the surface. Ramah Commanday constructs micro-geological worlds from clay, exploring how the processes of massive geological change—motion, heat, cooling—can be used to construct her planetary forms.
Together these artists invite the viewer to engage with the enchantment and the mystery of the under, the above, and the everywhere. This celebration of unabashed materiality—of our world as well as in each work of art—offers a rich reminder of what is essential to our nature.
Show Details
UNDER, ABOVE, EVERYWHERE: Celebrating Materiality
April 5 – May 22, 2016
Christopher Brodigan Gallery
Groton School
282 Farmers Row
Groton MA 01450
978 448 7637
Artist Reception: Sunday, April 17, 2-4pm
Gallery hours: Monday through Friday, 9-5