ALTARS OF IMPERFECTION // QUARANTINE VISIONS
chelsea wrightson
AUGUST 7 - SEPTEMBER 11, 2020 www.harwoodartcenter.org
ALTARS OF IMPERFECTION // QUARANTINE VISIONS
chelsea wrightson
Harwood Art Center August 7 - September 11, 2020
All images photographed by Aziza Murray COVER: Chelsea Wrightson, Quarantine #5, graphite, watercolor and colored pencil on paper, 11” x 7.5”, 2020
On March 13, 2020, in accordance with public health emergency orders, we announced Harwood’s building closure, ceased all in-person gatherings, deployed staff to work from home, and began pivoting our programs to continue mission-driven service to the 10,000 New Mexicans we engage each year. In this transition, we have made fundamental shifts in the content, strategies, and financial models we’ve refined over 29 years of rootedness in our public, physical, arts center, and we’ve shaped, tested and rolled out an array of new distance arts and exhibition engagements, and have many more to come. As we contemplated how to adjust our exhibitions program, for a time when we cannot plan physical convenings (such as exhibitions or opening receptions in our galleries, which have been cornerstones of this program), we’ve explored countless ideas, and we’ve sketched out a revised framework that we believe upholds the core value(s) of the program and adapts best to the upsidedown of now. Under the current guidelines, our August exhibiting artists, Chelsea Wrightson and Susie Protiva, were able to install their physical exhibitions in our galleries as originally planned. The exhibitions have been accessible to the public by appointment. All visitors to the gallery have worn face masks, practiced social distancing, and complied with all safety guidelines set forth by the CDC. To increase the reach of the exhibitions, they have been throughly documented and presented here in a comprehensive digital exhibition catalog. Additionally, we hosted a Virtual Reception and Artist Talks with Susie Protiva and Chelsea Wrightson on Zoom, Thursday, August 27 at 5:30pm. This event was free and open to all ages. Recordings of the Virtual Reception & Artist Talk are archived on our website and accessible for anyone to watch.
ALTARS OF IMPERFECTION / chelsea wrightson The origins of this exhibition were in the alchemical shift from waste to altar; at once a reflection of our reverence for single use materials, a nod to their permanent underground deposits, and an imagined space of a world beyond their use and proliferation. It is my desire that my offering situates there, in the imagined realms: in what we need to give death to, and what must be exalted after the wake. What more beautiful world unfurls in these mysteries, in their becoming? This work sits differently today. Its scope has expanded in service to shifts in the collective consciousness and in response to our collective grief. On a molecular level, plastic is one of the strongest human inventions. White supremacist capitalist patriarchy sits in direct parallel. Entire ecosystems have been organized around their existence. Entire ways of being must be reimagined. Our trash and our history are being built into the landscape in real time, without the consideration of the lasting effects of either. This work is my attempt to make something beautiful, to create balance, to build another world.
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// QUARANTINE VISIONS
Chelsea Wrightson, Altars of Imperfection // Quarantine Visions, installation view 5
My offering is imperfect. As I have benefited from these systems, I kneel before these altars to both process my ongoing growth towards necessary change and contemplate a more just reality. Altars of Imperfection are bas-relief oil paintings made of poured plaster castings from my collected array of single use plastics. The plaster castings are set in harmonic compositions, locked in space and time with a poured plaster finish. I see these compositions as fossils in a landscape.
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Chelsea Wrightson, Altars of Imperfection // Quarantine Visions, installation view
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Left to Right: Chelsea Wrightson, legacies of our human fossils, 2020, acrylic, textured spray paint, spackling, plaster of Paris, wood frame of Paris, wood frame, 42 x 16 inches, $2500 // Chelsea Wrightson, the beauty of everyday things, 2020, oil paint, colored pencil, spacklin
e, 31 x 11 inches, $1200 // Chelsea Wrightson, the last words of the universe have yet been spoken, 2020, oil paint, spackling, plaster ng, textured spray paint, wood, plaster of Paris, wood frame, 31 x 11 inches, $1200
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Chelsea Wrightson, legacies of our human fossils, detail, 2020, acrylic, textured spray paint, spackling, plaster of Paris, wo
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ood frame, 31 x 11 inches, $1200
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Chelsea Wrightson is donating
Orenda Tribe’s current initiative of Nááts’íilid heart project to de children and support of domest on Dinétah, including the Amá (ADABI) shelter in Chinle, Ariz
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Chelsea Wrightson, a future full of yesterdays, 2020, oil paint, colored pencil, plaster of Paris, wood frame, 42 x 16 inches, $2500
g 50% of the sale of her artworks to support Orenda Tribe and Crossroads for Women.
es include the Children eliver care kits to Diné tic abuse shelters Dóó Áłchíní Bíghan zona.
Crossroads for Women (Albuquerque, NM) provides comprehensive, integrated services to empower women emerging from incarceration to achieve safe, healthy, and fulfilling lives in the community, for themselves and their children.
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Chelsea Wrightson, a vessel sits still for the sun to set, 2020, oil paint, plaster of Paris, wood frame and legs, $1800 14
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Chelsea Wrightson, a vessel sits still for the sun to set, detail views, 2020, oil paint, plaster of Paris, wood frame and legs, $1800 17
Chelsea Wrightson, a vessel sits still for the sun to set, 2020, oil paint, plaster of Paris, wood frame and legs, $1800 18
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Chelsea Wrightson, Quarantine #1, 2020, graphite and colored pencil on paper, 11 x 7.5 inches, $300 20
At the beginning of COVID-19 I started the series Quarantine Visions ; a return to working on my kitchen table with limited materials while my child sleeps. In these graphite and colored pencil drawings I channel line, form, and geometry to chart what the brain does with limited visual information. Like the feeling of my eyes adjusting to sudden darkness, my brain constructs its own visuals to focus on in the absence of others. Working on this series has given me moments of harmony during this time of unrest.
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Chelsea Wrightson, Quarantine #2, 2020, graphite and colored pencil on paper, 11 x 7.5 inches, $300 22
Chelsea Wrightson, Quarantine #3, 2020, graphite and colored pencil on paper, 11 x 7.5 inches, $300 23
Chelsea Wrightson, Altars of Imperfection // Quarantine Visions, installation view 24
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Chelsea Wrightson, Altars of Imperfection // Quarantine Visions, installation view 27
Chelsea Wrightson, Quarantine #4, 2020, graphite and colored pencil on paper, 11 x 7.5 inchess, $300 28
Chelsea Wrightson, Quarantine #6, 2020, graphite and colored pencil on paper, 11 x 7.5 inchess, $300 29
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Chelsea Wrightson with the beauty of everyday things
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elsea wrightson
Wrightson is a painter, ceramicist and mother. She her BFA in printmaking from the University of New and worked for six years at a commercial art gallery. Her s been exhibited in Albuquerque, NM and New York, NY. rently lives in Albuquerque and maintains her painting in her studio at the Harwood Art Center.
elseaWrightson.com
never too late to not feel invisible. Whispered to me in , I am working to accept the call back to myself, and to he sound of my own voice while amplifying the voices of presented people. My work is in connection to the lineages c womxn artists Emma Kunz, Hilma af Klint, Agnes Pelton, es Martin. I draw inspiration from desert living, invisible ena, space travel, archaeology, and memory. I create still life tions situated within landscapes, combining mementos and from my vivid dreams. I celebrate mistakes in my paintings without my mistakes, I have no reason to continue g. � – Chelsea Wrightson
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ABOUT HARWOOD ART CENTER & ESCUELA DEL SOL MONTESSORI
HARWOOD ART CENTER’S GALLERIES are dedicated to providing exhibition, audience expansion and professional development opportunities to artists. Harwood Staff curate four exhibitions annually; the remaining months are awarded to individuals and groups through a competitive application process. Harwood, the outreach program of Escuela del Sol Montessori, is a creative center for community and the arts. We believe that equitable access to the arts and opportunities for creative expression are integral to inspired, passionate individuals and to healthy, vibrant communities. Participating at a grassroots level, we recognize and engage the arts as a catalyst for lifelong learning, social change and community development. We provide art education for all ages; community outreach projects and events; teaching and apprenticeship opportunities; and studios, exhibitions and professional development programs for both emerging and established artists.
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For 50 years, Escuela del Sol, an independent Montessori school, has nurtured self-discovery, social responsibility and passion for learning in our students. Each day Escuela supports students from ages 18 months to 13 years on their real-world quests to excel academically and to develop the skills they need for meaningful, happy and successful futures. Harwood and Escuela are dedicated to instilling a passion for lifelong learning, creative expression and positive impact on our world.
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WWW.HARWOODARTCENTER.ORG · 505.242.6367 · 1114 7th NW, ALBUQUERQUE, NM 87102