Jean Nerenberg

Celestial Navigations #1. Watercolor mounted on wood cradle. 14 x 18 inches. 2008

Celestial navigations are part of a series that explored man’s relationship to the universe. We are bound to earth but look up in awe at the stars and planets.

Martha Nicholson

Notebook Pieces: Constraint. Oil on paper. 24 x 24 inches. 2011

These drawings spit restlessness the underbelly of constraint. Bound. Agitated. Gritty. Abrasive. These images are bound taut and tight within the rectangle. Some push fierce and hard against the boundary, others dart and flail. Some are chaotic and writhe, syncopated and staccato, snared by four edges— structural battles—forms that encounter and skirmish wrestle for balance. Some harsh, some fluid. Some lure with provocative texture: Black oil laid down with true intention and clear voice.

Being ‘Bound’ socially and economically can set up psychological limitations. In Closed Door the duality of being bound and that of psychological freedom are represented by juxtaposed and contrasting areas of pale pink and black pigment. Color choice was based upon stereotypical representations of women.

Michele Noiset

My work represents a dystopian doctrine, and the ways in which humans place constraints and limitations on one another. All societies begin with a utopian ideal of a perfectly constructed world. Weaknesses in human nature slowly undermine these ideals. Hierarchies are created. Power is abused. One group gains control over another. Those without power are forced into submission. In my layered pastels, I use monochromatic tones to pare down my concepts to their simplest and most direct form.

Tanya Nolan

To be bound is a human condition; we are bound to the earth by physical means and to each other through psychological means. We see beauty when these ties are seemingly transcended, and we also see our own vulnerability. Through language and a physical artistic process, this piece explores what it means to be bound and the inherent human desire to be free.

Taryn O’Reilly

My three dimensional series, Yellow, was inspired by Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Each box contains a figure that is both provocative and vulnerable in pose. While they appear to be declaring their sexuality, the figures are trapped and covered amongst their own ‘pretty prisons’. I wanted the piece to center around the idea of boundaries and why they exist. Often times we create inner barriers through our own expectations, and sometimes it is what is expected of us that binds us.