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TheoGanz Studio! The Wind Will Carry Us! Nov 14 - Dec 7, 2015!
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! ! this exhibition is dedicated to the refugees ! ! ! ! ! !
! ! ! ! The Wind Will Carry Us! Nov 14 - Dec 7, 2015!
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Kenojuak Ashevak ! Joseph Ayers ! Samantha Beste ! Sunok Chun! Elana Goren ! Mialia Jaw! Lori Merhige ! Eleni Smolen ! Kenneth J. Wright!
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TheoGanz Studio is pleased to present a group exhibition, The Wind Will Carry Us, featuring the work of Kenojuak Ashevak (1927-2013), Joseph Ayers, Samantha Beste, Elana Goren, Mialia Jaw (1934-2006), Lori Merhige, Eleni Smolen and Kenneth Wright. With an emphasis on painting, printmaking and sculpture and taking our title from Abbas Kiarostami’s* poetic film, think of this exhibition, if you will, as an ode to the present and to all those who make a journey, metaphorically or literally, in search of deeper awareness and a better world for themselves and all sentient beings.! *http://www.filmcomment.com/article/with-borrowed-eyes-aninterview-with-abbas-kiarostami/ !
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! ! ! ! Kenojuak Ashevak (1927-2013)! Sedna’s Journey, 2011! Etching, aquatint and sugar lift and hand painted by Harold Klunder!
photographs of Inuit graphics by Dorset Fine Arts/Toronto!
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Kenojuak Ashevak! 1927-2013!
! ! ! Kenojuak Ashevak was one of Canada’s most acclaimed graphic artists. Her drawings are colorful, bold and captivating and her work was represented in almost every annual print collection from Cape Dorset since 1959 and received many awards and honors over the years. In 1967 she was made a Companion in the Order of Canada and traveled extensively all over the world as an ambassador for Inuit art. !
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Joseph Ayers! Sora II! 2015! acrylic on panel ! 18 x 24 in!
Joseph Ayers!
! ! In the painting titled Sora, a vertical panel has a series of minimal linear frames that nest around a central window of clouds. Each frame around the center reflects and suggests the textured clouds and together read as a series of rectangular planes that cascade both toward and away from the viewer. The tension between the loose texture of the clouds and the rigid delineated space invites the viewer into a maze of perceptual uncertainty as they try to make sense of the cloud.! Sora is the Japanese word for sky. It is also the name of my cloud-patterned parakeet. Native Americans used the word sora to describe winged creatures. In the painting titled Sora, perception is a winged creature caught in a series of reflected frames. The aesthetic underpinnings of the piece reflect on a notion that our perceptions are, rather a continuum of sensation and incident, fragmented and fractured; ultimately a rigid patchwork of subjective interpretations seen through a series of frames. Each textured frame is an allegory and informs the position of the adjacent frame. Both time and space are refracted as the viewer tries to understand their own position in relation to the twodimensional field.!
! Samantha Beste ! Desire Path! 2015! oil on panel! 18 x 18 in! (all photographs of Samantha’s paintings by Philip Wu)!
! Samantha Beste! Long Dock Dusk, 2015! oil and alkyd on panel! 18 x 18 in!
Samantha Beste! Side by Side, 2015! oil on panel! 16 x 16 in!
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! Samantha Beste! These paintings in oil on birch panel seek to encapsulate the particular ambience of Beacon at the “magic hour� - ripples of romance and melancholy, belonging and alienation and the shifting undertow of mood as the dusk deepens.!
! ! Sunok Chun!
! ! I think of my art works as metaphoric boxes in which I glimpse reality as I see it. I am interested in the relationship between the enclosed space and the space beyond its boundaries. So my work is often comprised of antithetic elements that describe that relationship - such as geometry and the spontaneous gesture. My paintings set up a dialogue between rational straight lines and atmospheric areas of color with floating, gestural expression.!
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opposite:! Sunok Chun! Following the Wind! 2012! oil on canvas! 75 x 58 in! photograph by Max Yawney!
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! ! Eleni Smolen! Kalo Taxithi! (Safe Journey)! 1998-99! oil and mixed media on paper to panel! 42 x 102 in! photograph by D. James Dee!
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! ! ! ! ! Eleni Smolen!
! Most of my art work relates to the natural world and her processes of restoration and renewal. When we moved deep in the woods in upstate New York in the mid-90’s, I started to paint. I found myself hypersensitive to the landscape and her colors, patterns and textures. There is a visual energy which resonates on emotional and spiritual levels. Entomologist Edward O. Wilson has coined the word biophilia to describe his hypothesis that humankind’s affinity for the natural world is innate. Wilson calls the natural world “…the refuge of the spirit, remote, static, richer even than human imagination.”!
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! Lori Merhige!
! It has been said that ‘life is a line,’ and if that is so, we understand there is a beginning and an end to that line. But what of the middle? How can we visually describe the human condition the trappings of the body, the conflicts of the heart, the struggles of faith that keep us forever grasping for a clue to our purpose, our individual and collective reasons for existence? If the ‘line’ of life could be as a length of fabric then the ‘middle’ of the journey, the substance that individualizes this life, would be twisted, tangled, knotted, deviating in various directions yet tethered to its center, as we are all tethered to our bodies, for now.!
! opposite:! Lori Merhige! Middle! 2015! Fabric, gypsum, steel, wood! Installation photograph by Daniel Nelson for! Inner and Outer Self exhibition ! at The Church of St. Paul the Apostle, NYC!
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! ! Mialia Jaw (1934-2006)! Owl and Hare! 2004! Stonecut and Stencil! 20 x 25 in! Signed, stamped, original graphic from Cape Dorset! Ed 37/50!
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Kenojuak Ashevak! Protective Haven, 2013! Etching and Aquatint! Signed, stamped, original graphic from Cape Dorset!
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! ! Elana Goren! Dark Side of the Road! 2014! Aquatint etching! 20 x 24 in!
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! ! Elana Goren!
! As a printmaker, I create etchings, monotypes and relief prints which seek to evoke an emotional reaction through visual “stories” depicted from animal subjects’ sentient point-ofview. I endeavor to provide an opening for the viewer, a provocation to think more deeply about a topic which is most often trivialized. I create a visual narrative that compels the viewer to look beyond the obvious and delve into the reality of each subject’s situation.!
! …With my awareness of the conditions in which non-humans exist in the human world, I am determined to shed light on what is happening through the visual language of my artwork.!
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Ken Wright!
! This sculpture is an abstracted reconstruction of a blooming flower. Its biologically-inspired design reflects the geometric patterns and movements of life that already surround us. The initial intent for this piece is to serve as an indication of the natural world’s complexity and superior beauty but evolved to be the embodiment of my personal artistic freedom as well.!
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Joseph Ayers, Untitled (Trees & Clouds), 2014, acrylic on birch panel, 54 x 86 in diptych!
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TheoGanz Studio! 149 Main Street Beacon, NY 12508 theoganzstudio.com 917.318.2239