LONG BEACH ISLAND FOUNDATION OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES WATERWORKS 2019 WaterWorks 1
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WaterWorks Welcome The WaterWorks Exhibition July 26 – August 11 Artist Reception Saturday, July 27, 5:00 - 7:00pm Documentary Film Screenings Sonic Sea Friday, July 26, 7:30pm Fee: $5
Paris to Pittsburgh Thursday, August 1, 8:00pm Fee: Free
About the exhibition “Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.” Lao Tsu The WaterWorks exhibition explores the immense impact of water on all life forms, as our most basic component that sustains us, providing pleasure and at times becoming a forceful threat. The exhibit showcases artists whose work deals with contemporary themes about Water in mediums such as paintings, photography, ceramics, mixed media, and digital 3D prints. The artwork shown illustrates the many facets of “water”: the interface of land form (our island) with the ocean, the wetlands, and concepts of everything else that it impacts: organic life in water, the surface images, the ecological implications of water, and the human condition. The intersections of Art and Science are ever present in these works of art and in the research of these artists. Works shown encompass both two and three dimensional work and is on view in our gallery, on our grounds and also shown as video presentations.
Cover art: Diane Burko Detail this page: Sydney Drum Catalog design: Tracey Cameron
“Water is to me, I confess, a phenomenon which continually awakens new feelings of wonder as often as I view it.” Michael Faraday As you view the various aspects of water that inspire these artists, we hope you experience the wonder, magic, mystery and allure that is water, and it ability to bind together all of humanity, nature and this planet. The LandWorks and WaterWorks exhibitions are some of LBIF’s most ambitious art exhibitions to date. I wish to acknowledge and thank the many people whose extensive work and research made this exhibition possible, and in particular: Guna Mundheim and Gail Sidewater, Co- Chairs of WaterWorks. Lydia Owens, Chair of LandWorks, Sybil Kleinfeld, Carol Nussbaum, Rebecca Phillips. Special thanks to Tracey Cameron, who designed this beautiful catalog and Bank of America for their support as Presenting Sponsor. Daniella Kerner Executive Director and Co-Chair of Arts & Exhibitions, LBIF
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WaterWorks 1 Valda Bailey Currently living in East Sussex in the UK, Valda Bailey grew up on the Island of Jersey. She still retains an affinity for seascapes and coastal views. Her approach to photography is greatly informed by her background in painting and influences come as much from artists as photographers. Valda thinks as a consequence of this, she is drawn towards flat, abstract rendition. She is largely motivated by colour and form and the tension and dynamism that these components can bring to an image.
2 Allen Bentley has explored figures in motion throughout his career. Using the vehicle of bustling dancers and swimming couples made of quick, energetic touches he discusses the dynamic nature of our quest for connection in our lives. Pushing, pulling, flirting, and chasing: these are the moments Bentley explores through a flurry of gestural marks. Bentley lives in Clarksburg, MD and teaches Figure Drawing at Montgomery College in Rockville, MD.
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3 Diane Burko Born in Brooklyn, Diane Burko graduated Skidmore College with a B.S. in art history and painting. She earned an MFA in painting from the University of Pennsylvania. Burko was a Professor at Community College of Philadelphia until 2000, also teaching at Princeton University, ASU, and PAFA. In 1974, she founded FOCUS: Philadelphia Focuses on Women in the Visual Arts. In 2011, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the WCA/CAA. She has also traveled to Antarctica as an educator for the non-profit Students on Ice organization.
4 Jason deCaires Taylor is a British sculptor and creator of the world’s first underwater “Sculpture Park”. He is best known for installing site-specific underwater sculptures which develop into artificial coral reefs integrating his skills as a sculptor, marine conservationist, underwater photographer and scuba diving instructor. His permanent site-specific works span several continents and predominately explore submerged and tidal marine environments. 5 Sydney Drum is a painter and digital media artist, who has exhibited extensively in the U.S.A., Canada, the United Kingdom and internationally in the U.K., Japan, and Germany. Her works are included in many museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian National Art Museum, Washington, D.C. 6 Marguerita Hagan is a ceramic sculptor based in Philadelphia. She is an advocate for the thriving of all life in mutually sustainable communities and environments. The concept of interdependence plays throughout her sculpture, as well as her teaching and community arts. Hagan has exhibited nationally and internationally throughout her career. 7 Stacy Levy graduated from Yale University with a BA in Art and a minor in forestry. She earned her MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University. She is a recipient of the Pew Fellowship in the Arts. Stacy grew up within the Wissahickon Watershed in Philadelphia, at the edge of Fairmount Park, which inspires her work. She lives in central Pennsylvania.
Artists 8 Greg Molyneux Near eight years in and photography still strikes Greg Molyneux as a most unlikely passion. From humble beginnings in 2012, participating in a yearlong photo-a-day project, one he was certain he would quit, to where he is today—a craftsman of landscapes. Photography, an art he once berated with open scorn as an ignorant youngster who thought he could draw well enough, has manifested as the creative outlet he never knew he loved.
11 Rebecca Rutstein Artist and ocean explorer, Rebecca Rutstein works at the intersection of art, science and technology. Her collaborations have been funded by the National Science Foundation and National Academies of Science. She has received a Pew Fellowship, Independence Foundation Fellowship and Delta Visiting Chair for Global Understanding. Rutstein is in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
9 Chris Pfeil Graduating with a BFA from Stockton University, Chris Pfeil’s formal education allowed him to learn traditional process, techniques, film printing methods while considering composition, balance and the beginning of honing his own style of photography. Travels through coastal Mexico and remote parts of Central America exploring rural surf towns was the beginning of several themes: surf, landscape, nature and the communities that make up these worlds both on a local and international level.
12 Manju Shandler Manju Shandler began her career in the 1990’s building original masks and puppetry for theatrical productions including The Lion King on Broadway. In 2001 her focus shifted to making visual art that responds to current events through politically charged narratives.
10 Phil Renato As a third generation metalworker Phillip Renato has spent his career designing and producing one-ofa-kind objects often not in metal, working digitally with binary computers and human fingers. Using contemporary processes and materials, he is a poet of post-products; building up and storing away little plastic phrases molded into things, filling an ever-inflating void and packing it all into ever-new objects. Renato teaches at the Kendall College of Art & Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
13 Joe Sweeney A resident of Ardmore, PA, he has taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, The University of the Arts, Wayne Art Center, Woodmere Art Museum, and Chester Springs Studio. Primarily a landscape painter his artwork is in many public and private institutions, private collections, and museums. 14 Rachael Talibart is a professional fine art photographer based in the South of England. She is best known for her Sirens portfolio. This portfolio has won numerous awards and has been published globally. Rachael has exhibited in major London galleries, Brighton, Barcelona, New York and Massachusetts and her limited edition prints appear in private collections internationally. WaterWorks 3
1 Hebridean Shallows 2014 Photography
2 Held in the Undertow 2014 Oil on canvas
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Valda Bailey
Valda Bailey Unrelenting sunshine and clear blue skies are fine for a day or two, but given the choice Valda Bailey would rather exist in murk and mist and subdued colours. Thankfully, the UK, and more specifically, Scotland, has this in abundance. These are the conditions of subtlety and softness; the gentle rain and the ethereal light that fills the soul and stirs the emotions. The coastal environment intrigues and delights her; how time and tide collide to produce the unforeseen.
Allen Bentley
Allen Bentley Whether under water or in dance, Allen Bently’s work explores the intimacy and connection through motion. To him, “water is the perfect metaphor for love: all-encompassing and powerful. In water/ in love, a wave can carry or drown you, but the currents are so irresistible you ignore the concert from your lungs about breathing. In water/in love, there is nothing else: any other voices are silenced in the enveloping quiet. And in that drowning/flying silence, bodies reach for each other - that is the moment I seek.�
3 Faga’alu 2018 Acrylic on canvas
4 The Sculpture Coralarium; Sirru Fen Fushi, Maldives 2018 Stainless Steel, Cement
Diane Burko
Diane Burko is a visual artist whose art focuses on monumental geological phenomena. She has investigated locations on the ground, underwater and in the air from open-door helicopters and planes with cameras, drones and sketch pads. She is currently exploring how coral reef ecosystems provide yet another indicator to the urgent issues of global warming. She views her commitment to witness, record, translate, and communicate scientific information though paintings and photographs as an antidote to climate doubt.
Jason deCaires Taylor Jason deCaires Taylor’s artworks are monumental, compelling and unique artificial reefs, formed of carefully crafted sculptures. His underwater “museums” have been installed in locations all over the world. Each sculpture becomes an integral part of the local eco-system. Made of highly durable marine grade cement, the rough texture encourages coral larvae to attach, while the nooks formed as folds of clothing provide homes for fish and crustaceans. His work represents a new, contemporary frontier of artistic experimentation.
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5 Untitled (SD// P125) 2017 Oil paint, digital media, linen
6 Beautiful Swimmer, Shield, Blue Crab 2017 Ceramic
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Sydney Drum
Sydney Drum’s paintings explore the intersections of painting, digital media, photography, and other sources. These works combine alternating panels of representation and abstraction. Some panels are hand-painted, others use digital technology to explore how this technology has changed the way we view painting. This juxtaposition is intended to engage the viewer in a dialog about these different approaches in contemporary artwork. In her work, these various modalities interact, but without one mode dominating another, and suggest a dialog of constantly shifting visions.
Marguerita Hagan Marguerita Hagan La Mer explores life of the ocean from the bioluminescent creatures of the abyss to the exquisite and mighty microscopic beauties in the sunlit zone. These single cells photosynthesize more than half of earth’s oxygen sustaining all life as the base of our food chain and ecosystem. Many cells form colonies networking to empower their oxygen prowess and mutual support. The intricate ceramic forms shine light on the wonder as well as the delicate, diverse and mostly unseen, little known life of the sea with which our lives are intrinsically linked.
7 Lenticular 2015 Lenticular plastic
8 Once More Unto the Breach 2016 Photography
Stacy Levy
Stacy Levy’s projects show the presence of urban nature clarifying the patterns of natural processes at work on the site. She works with urban streams, rivers, tides, and rainwater. Her work registers the changes in nature over the course of a day, a season or several years. Stacy likes to collaborate directly with natural forces, like the tides. She creates works that allows nature to show its very own patterns to the viewer. She concentrates on making places for people to experience urban nature and to witness the fluctuations of the natural world, to bring a sense of wonder and connectedness.
Greg Molyneux Greg Molyneux Executing landscape and nature photography Greg Molyneux works to share his appreciation of a world less touched by humanity, specifically revealing the underrated natural beauty of New Jersey. He is driven to produce visual evidence to disrupt New Jersey’s malign reputation of little more than suburban sprawl and highways. He allows a natural response to his surroundings. This intuition dictates the process. He works under a simple mandate to produce a photograph that best highlights the splendor of the place he calls home.
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9 Ocean Swell Photography
10 La Maelstrom 2019 Resin, Metal, 3D Print
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Chris Pfeil
Chris Pfeil The camera is the way Chris Pfeil communicates “everything he sees�. His personal landscape is determined by his moments of life, new landscapes, landscapes he has revisited, and landscapes he hopes to capture. He devotes time behind the lens primarily due to his own self driven curiosity. Chris finds peace in the patterns of nature and recognizes the subtle and artful changes within a natural landscape. He is happy to be witness to something much bigger than himself.
Phil Renato
Phillip Renato My brother and I would race to a small peninsula across the bay, at the mouth of the canal, and escape into what seemed to us a vast wilderness. I was the stronger swimmer, but I was the older brother. The tiny perturbations of the surface, our small wake, seemed somehow amplified whenever we exited the water for the house. The lake was a little deep, but it felt knowable - like something we could control. The house, its people, were chaos. Wet with liquor, the house walled in a maelstrom. We used less light back then, just flickers of living room lights escaping from bay windows across the lake at dusk.
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Rebecca Rutstein
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Manju Schandler
Rebecca Rutstein’s work expands upon her long and deeply held interests in geology, microbiology, marine science, and the undercurrents that continually shape and reshape our world. She creates R/V Falkor & R/V layered networks where scale Atlantis series is shifted and obscured, artic2016 - 2018 ulating fractal patterns found Acrylic on canvas in nature. Incorporating data and maps, juxtapositions often coexist in her paintings and installations: micro and macro, expressive and restrained, graphic and atmospheric, organic and geometric, handmade and mechanized, linear and solid.
Oil Spill 1 2012 Polyester film, vinyl, paper
Manju Schandler is a visual storyteller creating narrative imagery imbued with elastic meaning. Her mixed media artworks are a meditation on current events presented as a psychological landscape that build upon established storylines in pursuit of ordering madness. Her work is often focused on humankind’s pursuit of fuel. These pieces are part of an exploration of the ocean as our planet’s life blood: marine plants provide the greatest source of the earth’s oxygen. While the oceans are generous they are not infinite.
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13 White Shell 2019 Acrylic, Wood
14 Ceto 2016 Photography
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Joe Sweeney Joe Sweeney has used landscape painting as a metaphor for his own search for a sense of balance. Some of the themes he explores in his work have to do with man’s relationship with nature, the effects that man has on the environment, and expressing the character and essence of “place”. He spends hours looking, thinking and selecting a location for the work. The foundation of most of his work is small “Plein air” paintings that will often find their way onto larger canvases.
Rachael Talibart
Rachael Talibart grew up on England’s south coast in a yachting family and this close connection with the ocean informs her work. For Rachael, the coast is a potent location; it isn’t the end of the land, it is the beginning of imagination and possibility. In her work, she expresses the many moods the ocean provokes, from serenity to exhilaration. As a child, during long sea crossings, she watched the waves and became fascinated with how they moved and the almost sculptural shapes they made.
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