IN PROCESS 2008
Curated by Jason Paradis
The Carriage House at the Islip Art Museum
OPEN STUDIOS
Saturday, May 3 – Sunday, May 4, 2008, 2:00 - 4:00 pm
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Islip Art Museum is pleased to announce that "In Process," the Winter Studio Program at the Carriage House, will hold its Open Studios. The galleries are transformed into working space where artists are given an opportunity to generate demanding projects that would normally be difficult to do without the space being offered. The artists are selected not only on an interesting and challenging proposal but also on some unifying qualities in their practice and production. This year, the museum is proud to present Melissa Brown, Marie Lorenz, and Jason Nickel. Each artist not only exemplifies a rigorous routine but also is unified on the importance of process that is inherent in their method of making art.
Melissa Brown’s recent work makes use of symbols and fragments from colloquial printed formats, specifically money and scratch off lottery tickets. She interprets vernacular imagery by highlighting political and social symbolism that already exists within the public realm. While at the Carriage House, she is making three oversized color woodcuts. So big, in fact, that she uses a small steamroller to press the edition. The prints are transformed through folding. They adopt a variety of paper folding mechanisms–Al Jaffee's MAD fold-ins, a paper-fortune teller or "cootie catcher,” and a mathematical folding pattern called a hexahexaflexagon–as a means of abstracting and giving dimension and tactility to their graphic underpinnings.
Marie Lorenz combines what she calls “psycho-geographic exploration” with highly crafted, material work. The use of hand-made boats and their subsequent navigation create an uncertain space with an alternate perspective meant to heighten one’s awareness of place. For “In Process,” she is making a sailboat that she will sail from Islip, home to Brooklyn, at the conclusion of the residency. The boat is made of plywood and the planks are carved with images of what she sees in the water around New York. Rubbings, prints, and drawings are made using the relief carvings on the side of the boat. The images are predictions, a self-fulfilling prophecy, of what she will encounter on the voyage home.
For Jason Nickel, the process of painting is active meditation, and the work produced is its visual evidence. With gesture and the rich surfaces of oil paint, a visual experience is created that fosters a reflection upon spiritual and metaphysical ideas; themes once reserved for religious and sacred art. His studio practice at the Carriage House is an act of improvisation. He is creating several experimental works that feed off of each other in aesthetics and in meaning. Most are done on a tondo format. Some of it is more sculptural and includes wooden samurai swords, broken glass, or other objects. All the work is focused on creating something that is eroded to an absolute essence–even the Carriage House studio, a private and individualized world for the artist, is transformed into a meaningful work of art.
The artists have been working at the Carriage House since February 1, 2008.