SANDRA MARCHEWA
bruno david gallery
SANDRA MARCHEWA December 5, 2008 -January 17, 2009 Bruno David Gallery 3721 Washington Boulevard Saint Louis, 63108 Missouri, U.S.A. info@brunodavidgallery.com www.brunodavidgallery.com Director: Bruno L. David This catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition Sandra Marchewa: Work at Bruno David Gallery Editor: Bruno L. David Catalog Designer: Yoko Kiyoi Design Assistants: Claudia R. David Printed in USA All works courtesy of Bruno David Gallery and Sandra Marchewa Cover Image: Sandra Marchewa. Misfire (detail), 2008 Mixed Media, 17 x 14-1/2 x 21-1/2 inches (43.18 x 36.83 x 54.61 cm) Copyright Š 2009 Bruno David Gallery, Inc. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of Bruno David Gallery, Inc.
Contents
Essay by Malcolm Gay Afterword by Bruno L. David Checklist of the Exhibition Biography
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Essay by Malcolm Gay 2
If you’re looking for a moral, you won’t find one here. Certainly, the work of St. Louis artist Sandra Marchewa has plenty in common with the fairy tale, but it bears little resemblance to the bowdlerized big screen confections that these days pass for the fantastic. Rather, Marchewa’s three-dimensional paintings and wall sculptures hearken back to the more animistic, morally open-ended, and, yes, frightening worlds of the Brothers Grimm and Lewis Carroll. Like the magical thinkers that preceded her, Marchewa creates worlds in which nature is a potent and often overwhelming force. Here figures morph into one another. Skulls bloom, daisy-like, from slender stalks. Spiders boast the legs of chorus girls, and a pair of siblings (or are they lovers?) twists on willowy armatures as the duo is subsumed by a riot of blooms. Form and meaning are malleable. The natural world—ever shifting and indifferent to our anthropomorphist tendencies—is a portentous realm, bursting with both wonder and menace. Like the source material for such tales as “The Queen Bee” or “Little Red Riding Hood,” Marchewa’s work is less concerned with accurately reflecting the outside world. Rather, her paintings and sculptures are, to borrow an insight from the psychologist Bruno Bettleheim, “‘spiritual explorations’ that [reveal] ‘human life as seen, or felt, or divined from the inside.’” But whereas Bettelheim believed fairy tales empowered children to make sense of the world and discover their own inner strength, Marchewa’s work has no such didactic aspirations. She is an observer, a commentator, and her topsy-turvy creations act as windows unto a fiercely personal landscape.
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Self-taught as an artist, Marchewa transforms lowly everyday items—nail polish, hair dye, clamshell takeout boxes, bar top resin, and Sculpey, among many other materials—to create her personal cartography. But if her use of everyday items places her firmly in the folk art tradition, it is her technique that sets her apart. More so than many artists, Marchewa’s work and subject matter cannot be divorced from her choice of medium. By suspending her sculpted figures in successive layers of resin, Marchewa is able not only to create three dimensional landscapes, but also, by further embellishing each layer with intricate, even obsessive, painted forms, the painting itself becomes a sculptural element, allowing careful viewers explore the work’s many figurative and literal layers. The effect, in a work like Entomophagous, is that viewers behold an allegoric aquarium of a world, in which bright and shiny moth-like creatures fret, improbably, over their imagined fate at the jaws of some ravenous biped. Constructed of Sculpey, the moth figures are almost cartoonish—one of them chews nervously on what we can only imagine is a moth-fingernail—thus amplifying (and drawing our attention toward) our native impulse to inject this alien scene with human thought and emotion. Meanwhile, the resin setting—cloudy in areas, studded with accidental air bubbles, and suspending a richly imagined landscape—contributes mightily to the sense that we’ve been granted access, if only momentarily, to a world beyond our reach, but (we continue in vain to hope) within our comprehension. But Marchewa’s work is by no means all allegory and foreboding. A rich vein of humor runs through many of the artworks, contrasting our polite expectation that meaning be transparent, with a more ambiguous reality. Thus in TPS, for instance, a trio of spangled figures blurts the thought-bubble niceties “Thank You…”, “Please…”, and “I’m Sorry…” all while mortally suspended in a spider’s web. Meanwhile, in her wall sculpture The Fickle Finger of Fate, a bouquet-like constellation of petals gives way to a radial wheel of extended middle fingers.
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This sweet solution is integral to many of the works, but it also allows viewers easy access to some of the more difficult aspects of Marchewa’s art, gently reminding us that it is often in that gap between expectation and reality that we harness life’s deepest truths. —Malcolm Gay
Malcolm Gay is a writer. He lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri. This essay is one in a series of the gallery’s exhibitions written by fellow gallery artists and friends.
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Afterwords by Bruno L. David 6
I am pleased to exhibit a new series of sculptures by Sandra Marchewa at the Bruno David Gallery. Support for the creation of significant new works of art has been the core to the mission and program of the Bruno David Gallery since its founding. Sandra Marchewa’s remarkable and compelling work makes her one the most impressive artist of the gallery. Sandra Marchewa can be considered something of a hidden treasure among those in St. Louis. Over the years, her work has developed into layered paintings that often inject transparent paint into the air bubbles between the plexi/resin. Her new work explore constant and dichotomous battle without the comfort of gray area. The space reveals a struggle between content and technique, good and bad, progress and destruction, love and hate, organic nature and synthetic process. Somewhere in between lies the ultimate answer, but the battle is a never-ending history, an exhausting, fruitless search. These flash-frozen conflicts provide a snapshot for further inspection in modern times. Marchewa creates her own world in which to escape, a time capsule or a fantasy existence with its own stories and experiences. The pieces will draw the viewer in to see a shifting contradiction in an almost living and breathing environment, and prove in a sense that water and oil do mix after all.
— Bruno L. David
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Checklist of the Exhibition and Images
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Misfire, 2008
Mixed Media 17 x 14-1/2 x 21-1/2 inches (43.18 x 36.83 x 54.61 cm) 10
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Misfire (detail), 2008
Mixed Media 17 x 14-1/2 x 21-1/2 inches (43.18 x 36.83 x 54.61 cm) 12
Tastes Acidic, 2008
Mixed Media 18 x 23 x 2 inches (45.72 x 58.42 x 5.08 cm) 14
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Tastes Acidic (detail), 2008
Mixed Media 18 x 23 x 2 inches (45.72 x 58.42 x 5.08 cm) 16
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TPS, 2008
Mixed Media 9 x 8-1/2 x 1 inches (22.86 x 21.59 x 2.54 cm) 18
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The Fickle Finger of Fate, 2008
Mixed Media 9-1/2 x 10-1/2 x 1 inches (24.13 x 26.67 x 2.54 cm) 20
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The Fickle Finger of Fate (detail), 2008
Mixed Media 9-1/2 x 10-1/2 x 1 inches (24.13 x 26.67 x 2.54 cm) 22
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Something Not Quite Cricket Happened , 2008 Mixed Media 4-1/2 x 8 x 5-1/2 inches (11.43 x 20.32 x 13.97 cm) 24
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Punks Series, 2008
Mixed Media 4-1/2 x 2 inches (11.43 x 5.08 cm) Size Variable, 19 Pieces 28
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Punks Series (detail), 2008
Mixed Media 4-1/2 x 2 inches (11.43 x 5.08 cm) Size Variable, 19 Pieces 30
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Skullduggery, 2006
Mixed media and multi-layer resin on panel 6-1/2 x 5-1/2 x 2 inches (16.51 x 13.97 x 5.08 cm) 32
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Post Marzipan, 2008
Mixed media and multi-layer resin 9 x 9 x 5 inches (22.86 x 22.86 x 12.70 cm) 34
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Going Down for the Third Time, 2006
Mixed media and multi-layer resin on panel 20-1/4 x 16-1/2 x 2 inches (51.43 x 41.91 x 5.08 cm) 36
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Going Down for the Third Time (detail), 2006
Mixed media and multi-layer resin on panel 20-1/4 x 16-1/2 x 2 inches (51.43 x 41.91 x 5.08 cm) 38
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Entomophagous, 2006
Mixed media and multi-layer resin on panel 7 x 26 x 4 inches (17.78 x 66.04 x 10.16 cm) 40
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Entomophagous (side view), 2006
Mixed media and multi-layer resin on panel 7 x 26 x 4 inches (17.78 x 66.04 x 10.16 cm)
S. Replaces Theodore, 2008
Mixed media and multi-layer resin on panel 40 x 8 x 1 3/4 inches (101.60 x 20.32 x 4.445 cm)
S. Replaces Theodore (detail), 2008
Mixed media and multi-layer resin on panel 40 x 8 x 1 3/4 inches (101.60 x 20.32 x 4.445 cm)
J’s Ribs, 2007
Mixed media and multi-layer resin on panel 15 x 5-1/2 x 1-1/2 inches (38.10 x 13.97 x 3.81 cm)
J’s Ribs (detail), 2007
Mixed media and multi-layer resin on panel 15 x 5-1/2 x 1-1/2 inches (38.10 x 13.97 x 3.81 cm)
SANDRA MARCHEWA Lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2009 2008 2006 2005 1998
Bruno David Gallery, Sandra Marchewa: Work, St. Louis, MO Schmidt Contemporary Arts Center, Sandra Marchewa, Belleville, Illinois Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sandra Marchewa: Chemical Dependents, Forest Park Community College, Saint Louis, MO Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, Sandra Marchewa, St. Louis, MO The Midtown Arts Center, Vexploitations, Saint Louis, MO
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2009 2008 2007 2006 2004 2003 2002 2001
OVERVIEW_09, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO Inaugural Exhibit, Art:Raw Gallery, St. Louis. MO OVERVIEW_08, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO Multimedia Invitational, Saint Charles community College, Saint Charles, MO Version Festival 2007, Chicago, Illinois 30 Artists: small-scale work, Philip Slein Gallery, St. Louis, MO New Work, Philip Slein Gallery, Saint Louis, MO 20th Anniversary, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. louis, MO Women Only, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. louis, MO Wall Ball, benefit and silent auction for the South City Open Studio and Gallery for Children Regarding Objects, The Sheldon Art Galleries, Saint Louis, MO Regarding Objects, Innsbrook Art Galleries, Innsbrook, MO Regarding Objects, The Commonspace, Saint Louis, MO Artists in Cellophane, Art*o*Mat Vending Machines, various museums and locations in the USA Group Exhibition, Atomic Cowboy, Saint Louis, MO Rock and Roll Melt Down, Mad Art Gallery, Saint Louis, MO Group exhibition, Crowe T. Brookes, Saint Louis, MO Mangia Italiano, Saint Louis, MO Lemp Brewery Artist, The Sheldon Art Galleries, Saint Louis, MO
2000 1999 1997 1996 1995 1994 1992 1990
Art Saint Louis XV: Go Figure, Saint Louis, MO Hot Locust Cantina, Saint Louis, MO Art Saint Louis XIII: The Exhibition, Saint Louis, MO (juried by Jerry Saltz) CaDa Fine Arts, Saint Louis, MO 12th Annual National Juried Exhibit, Garret Gallery, Saint Louis, MO Two Views, Phi She Gallery and Studio, Saint Louis, MO Open Book, 450 Broadway Gallery, New York City (curated by Larry Krone) Sandra Marchewa, Grind Coffee House, Saint Louis, MO Creative Art Gallery, Saint Louis, MO 6th Floor Gallery, Saint Louis, MO Culture Clash, Taproots School of the Arts, Saint Louis, MO Union Notice, 1227 Nightclub and Gallery, Saint Louis, MO Grand Opening, 6th Floor Gallery, Saint Louis, MO Loop in Motion Festival: 20th Century Books and Ephemera, Saint Louis, MO
Selected Bibliography Gay, Malcolm Oakes, Jordan Bonetti, David Kerman, Byron King, Chris Bonetti, David Bonetti, David Daniel, Jeff Daniel, Jeff
“Sandra Marchewa: Work”, Catalogue, Essay. Bruno David Gallery Publications, St. Louis, MO “Window Treatment”, St. Louis Magazine, page 192, December 2008, St. Louis, MO “Artist’s business gives Grand Center a classy touch”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 29, 2008. St. Louis, MO “Sandra Marchewa: Work”, Sauce Magazine, page 63, December 2008. St. Louis , MO “Sandra Marchewa’s freak fish tanks at Bruno David”, Confluence City, December 2, 2008. St. Louis, MO “Sandra Marchewa: Chemical Dependents’”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 26, 2006. St. Louis, MO “Nearby Artists”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 22, 2006. St. Louis, MO “Lemp Brewery”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 29, 2001. St. Louis, MO “Art St. Louis”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 14, 1997. St. Louis, MO
ARTISTS Margaret Adams Dickson Beall Laura Beard Elaine Blatt Martin Brief Lisa K. Blatt Shawn Burkard Bunny Burson Carmon Colangelo Alex Couwenberg Jill Downen Yvette Drury Dubinsky Corey Escoto
Beverly Fishman Damon Freed William Griffin Joan Hall Takashi Horisaki Kim Humphries Kelley Johnson Howard Jones (Estate) Chris Kahler Bill Kohn (Estate) Leslie Laskey Sandra Marchewa Peter Marcus
Patricia Olynyk Robert Pettus Daniel Raedeke Chris Rubin de la Borbolla Frank Schwaiger Charles Schwall Christina Shmigel Thomas Sleet Buzz Spector Lindsey Stouffer Cindy Tower Mario Trejo Ken Worley
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