Tansey Contemporary Denver • Santa Fe
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www.tanseycontemporary.com
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info@tanseycontemporary.com 1743 Wazee Street, Denver CO 80202 | 720-596-4243 652 Canyon Road, Santa Fe NM 87501 | 505-995-8513
Contents Glass
Clare Belfrage Giles Bettison Lisa Cahill Holly Grace Noel Hart Yukito Nishinaka Harue Shimomoto Lino Tagliapietra
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Ceramics
Sam Chung Melanie Ferguson Sin-ying Ho Jim Kraft Calvin Ma Geoffrey Pagen Frances Priest Lara Scobie Avital Sheffer Sheryl Zacharia
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Mixed media
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Sculpture
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Painting
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Ran Adler KeKe Cribbs Lewis Knauss Gugger Petter Melinda Rosenberg Chris Hill Gino Miles
Frank Buffalo Hyde Hilario Gutierrez Krista Harris www.tanseycontemporary.com
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GLASS
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Clare Belfrage AUSTRALIA, GLASS Belfrage has forged an international reputation for her distinguished work with detailed and complex glass drawing on blown glass forms. She’s maintained a vibrant practice as an active member of the glass and artist communities in Adelaide and Canberra, Australia, for over 25 years. A two-time winner of the Tom Malone Glass prize, most recently Belfrage received the 2016 FUSE Glass Prize and was named the SALA (South Australian Living Artists) Festival Feature Artist for 2018. Dr Robert Bell, Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the National Gallery of Australia since 2000, said Belfrage’s work, “eluded a sense of effortlessness despite the extraordinary technical complexity in its creation.” Belfrage says, “As an artist, my point of view is often looking from close up. The big feeling that small gives me is intimate and powerful. The industry in nature, its rhythm and energy, dramatic and delicate still holds my fascination as does the language and processes of glass.” Belfrage’s work is represented in major public collections including: National Gallery of Australia, Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY, Museu do Vidro, Marinha Grande, Portugal, Tacoma Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA, National Art Glass Collection, Wagga Wagga, ArtBank, NSW, Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Museum and Art Gallery of Tasmania and Northern Territory Museum.
SKIN DEEP (brown and oceana) Blown glass with cane drawing, coldworked 22” x 10.2” x 5.5”
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Photo credit: Pippy Mount
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Giles Bettison AUSTRALIA, GLASS Giles Bettison has been making Murrini vessels (and panels) for over 20 years now and was the recipient of the 2015 South Australian Living Artist designation, which recognizes the work of leading practitioners from the region who have significant national and international profiles and considerable influence in their chosen field. While each of Bettison’s series reflect different and distinct bodies of work overall, the ideas and themes that influence his work most (landscape and textiles) cross-pollinate and each series builds upon and informs the others. The Billet series developed through the artist’s exploration of the rhythms and textures that arise from dense urban living and cityscapes as result of spending time in New York City when he began the series. “There are different responses that arise when people live closely, some of which manifest in fashion, architecture, street art and vandalism. All these things thrown together seem to create apparently random patterns. I look at different ways that we see the many (sometimes seemingly frenetic) patterns, combining to make something that we can understand”. This approach evolved into the Vista Series, for which Bettison used maps and aerial landscape photographs as a source for patterns and compositions. Bettison’s Textile and Lace Series are both inspired by his interest in the significance of textiles within cultures and traditions. “The fine detail, intricate patterns, and colors all speak of careful attention to detail, time commitment and skill among other things, values that are held in high regard.” Bettison’s work references these qualities and he strives to create beautiful objects: “When people see something beautiful they feel positive and it adds to overall positivity”. Bettison’s works are collected internationally and can be found in the permanent collections at Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, Australia , National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, Bullseye Glass Company, Portland, OR, Centro Videro do Norte Portugal, Oliveira de Azemeis, Portugal, Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY, Museum of Design and Applied Art, Lusanne, Switzerland, and The Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY.
TEXTILE 2015 #20 Murrini glass 11.6” x 5.9”
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Lisa Cahill AUSTRALIA, GLASS Lisa Cahill is a glass artist based in Canberra, Australia. Having spent many years living abroad and traveling the world, Cahill’s kiln formed glass connects structures of urban architecture, the associations and memories they evoke, and her innate respect for the natural landscape. Rather than a direct reproduction, Cahill’s images allow viewers to draw associations with their own remembered landscapes and provide a place for quiet contemplation. Cahill uses a variety of techniques including etching, engraving, lathe working and carving through both opaque and transparent layers of glass. She is able to manipulate and control light revealing an intensity of color and evoking notions of an ephemeral landscape. Exhibiting regularly nationally and internationally, she has been awarded numerous grants and prizes including Australia Council for the Arts Grants in 2002, 2007 and 2010, Finalist placement in both the Ranamok and Tom Malone Glass Prizes in Australia, and the Bullseye By Design Award In Portland, OR. Her work can be found in The National Art Glass Collection, Wagga Wagga Regional Art Gallery, Australia, The Ebeltoft Glass Museum, Denmark, the Northlands Creative Glass Collection, Lybster, Scotland, and Kaplan/Ostergaard Glass Collection, Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs California, USA.
INHALE #2 Kiln formed glass panels 7.75” x 45.5” x 4”
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Holly Grace AUSTRALIA, GLASS Holly Grace is an Australian artist based in Melbourne, Victoria. Growing up in Perth, a city of extreme isolation where nature is both beautiful and harsh, she developed a profound appreciation and love for the natural environment. Her understanding of the material of glass and the development of her artistic aesthetic have been significantly impacted by time spent in Scandinavia during and after her University studies. Grace completed her Master of Fine Art at Monash University in 2004, complimenting her studies with mentorship programs and as studio assistant to prominent glass artists in Australia, Denmark, Sweden and the UK. Since 2003 she has regularly traveled to Glasmuseet Ebeltoft in Denmark to continue studies in glass-blowing and design. Employing diverse techniques including photography, glass blowing, sandblasting and engraving, Grace uses glass as a surface for translating light, rendering intricate landscape imagery on and into the surface of blow glass vessels and objects. She has received numerous grants and awards, has exhibited in major international fairs and her work is held in public collections including the Australian National Glass Collection, National Gallery of Australia, Parliament House Art Collection (ACT, Australia), Glasmuseet Ebeltoft (Denmark), Gallery of Western Australia, and numerous corporate and private collections worldwide.
PRETTY VALLEY Glass powder, metal leaf surfaces 26.8” x 19.7” x 5.9”
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Noel Hart AUSTRALIA, GLASS Each of Hart’s handblown glass works command attention: vibrant and independent with well recognized painterly character. So it often goes unrealized that his work is inspired by birds, many of which fly around his rainforest home near Byron Bay in Australia. The precision with which Hart is able to capture the essence of a species using abstract imagery is simply brilliant. Each individual work conveys a sense of commune, empowering the species that inspired it. And through the making process (a closely choreographed team endeavor) a self contained work of art (more than sufficiently beautiful to stand on its own, separate from reference to it’s inspiring species) is also brought into being, further inspiring life and harmony. Hart’s work has attracted a loyal following of collectors worldwide, and is included in the KaplanOstergaard Collection, Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA, and the National Glass Collection, Wagga Wagga Regional Art Gallery, Australia.
ANTHILL PARROT Handblown glass sculpture 14” x 10.5” x 2.5”
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Yukito Nishinaka JAPAN, GLASS Nishinaka studied Sculpture and Glass at California College of the Arts, lives in and has exhibited widely in Japan, and the PAD Art Fair in London. “My YOBITSUGI Glass series is inspired by the traditional Japanese restoration technique for ceramic tea bowls. Broken pieces are joined back together with URUSHI lacquer toned with gold dust, emphasizing the cracks as a beautiful decorative feature, rather than hidden repair work. It was the samurai and their Tea Masters in the Edo period who first perceived the potential for beauty in the cracks and devised this special repairing technique. The samurai enjoyed tea ceremonies between their battles, to reach a state of ”ZEN”, and used YOBITSUGI tea bowls with the cracks serving as a metaphor for “death and rebirth”. The aesthetics of this tradition have continued for over 400 years and to this day YOBITSUGI restored tea bowls are valued as National Treasures, celebrating beauty in imperfection. I continue this tradition with a new interpretation of YOBITSUGI, in my glass works to emphasize this Japanese philosophy of Beauty and to encourage harmony with imperfection. I hope you can see the pulsing beauty in the rush of the vein of the vessel cracks.” Nishinaka’s works can be found in permanent collections worldwide including the Daiichi Museum, Nagoya, Japan.
YOBITSUGI G848 Glass, silver leaf 14” x 8” x 7.25”
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Harue Shimomoto RHODE ISLAND, GLASS Shimomoto arranges glass into sculptural tapestries examining the aesthetic possibilities in fusing methods and concepts from the mediums of glass and fiber. Shimomoto studied glass as a special student at Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH. After 2 years she moved to Wisconsin for graduate school and received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin. She recieved her BFA from Musashino Art University, Tokyo, Japan. Harue has worked as a teaching assistant at Pilchuk, assitant to artist Brent K Young and is currently the Director of Large Scale Projects for artist Toots Zynsky. “My work is inspired by nature. I appreciate the feelings I get from even the most unspectacular nature, and the small things in everyday life. I find the small beauties of nature are the ones that most change my view.”
CRAZY MOON Fused, slumped glass, suspended by wire 48” x 48” x 7
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Lino Tagliapietra SEATTTLE AND MURANO, GLASS Recognized internationally as the Maestro of contemporary glass and considered the “greatest glass blower of all time” by his peers, Lino Tagliapietra has been working with the material for over seventy years. Starting at the age of 11 as an apprentice on the island of Murano it was only a decade later, when he was working for some of the most prestigious glassworks companies in Murano, that he was given the title of Maestro. His breathtaking blown and fused glassworks demonstrate a stunning combination of technically complex production skills and an incredible creative mind. As both creator and executor of his works, he has developed a personal style that is unmistakable and easily recognized, and his exemplary practice is followed by many as a great source of inspiration. “Glass is a wonderful material. Why? Glass is alive. Even when it is cool it is still moving. It is connected with fire, it is connected with water, it is…my life”. Tagliapietra’s work is featured in numerous museum collections throughout the world, including the Corning Museum of Glass in New York, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, The De Young Museum in San Franscisco, the Victoria and Albert Museum of London, the Metropolitan Museum of New York, and many more.
SPIRALE 2016 Glass 20.5” x 6.75” x 6.75”
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CERAMICS
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Sam Chung ARIZONA, CERAMICS Sam Chung received his MFA from Arizona State University and his BA degree from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. He taught at Northern Michigan University from 1998-2007 and is now teaching at Arizona State University in Tempe where he is an associate professor of ceramics. Sam has presented numerous lectures and workshops both nationally and internationally. His work is often based on the ceramic vessel but Chung plays with the balance between form, function and design. “I am interested in the way that pots have the unique ability to serve a multitude of roles and functions. They can exhibit decorative beauty, bring attention to more functional/ tactile concerns, and also create historical, cultural and experiential associations. I work within the context of pottery to exploit its universal familiarity and impose my own vision for merging historically and culturally disparate influences. I am curious about the relationships I see among various forms of creative expression from both past and present, and try to bring forth a new language of pottery for the future.” Chung’s work resides in the permanent collections of the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, TX, The American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, CA, Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center, Skaelskor, Denmark, World Ceramic Exposition Foundation, Icheon World Ceramic Center, Gyeonggi-do, Korea, Arizona State University, Ceramics Research Center, Tempe, AZ, Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, Jingdezhen, China.
CLOUD BOTTLE Porcelain 13” x 17” x 11”
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Melanie Ferguson GEORGIA, CERAMICS Born in the seaport town of Newport, Oregon and later working in Washington State’s Pudget Sound, where she studied Graphic Design, Ferguson’s interest in art has been richly influenced by ocean surroundings and nourished by assisting, studying, and working with coastal artists and native elders. A longtime desire to live in the Southeastern United States initiated a move to the state of Georgia where she began full-time study in contemporary ceramics at Roswell Art Center West in 2007, exploring the sculptural quality of hand-built form and the narrative grace of surface with a special focus on wood, soda, and atmospheric firing. Today, her works are exhibited nationally and internationally as she continues her artistic exploration of sculptural form and surface from her Loch Highland studio near Roswell, Georgia. Using stoneware or earthenware, Ferguson hand builds each work and uses a variety of oxide stains (usually copper and iron), clay-based slips, color pigmented underglaze, and sgraffito techniques to establish surface visuals. She utilizes many firing methods appropriate for each work, with a preference for atmospheric firing. How the surface elements attract and cast flame plays an integral role in the evolution of the story that ultimately engages the beginning of her next work. “My goal is to establish a form and surface visual that expresses an edge of uncertainty and vulnerability with the power to initiate a dialogue with the story discovered within — a story that invites pause and ultimately engages our next move.”
A FEVER WITHIN Ceramics 20” x 15” x 15”
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Sin-ying Ho NEW YORK, CERAMICS Sin-ying Ho holds a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, an MFA from Louisiana State University and studied in Jingdezhen, China (considered the birthplace of ceramics) at the Jingdezhen Ceramics Institute. In both process and context, Ho’s work continually explores the impact of globalization: new vs. old, technology vs. tradition, communication vs. language, aesthetics vs. cultural identity and economy vs. power. “My work reflects the impact of globalization on the cultural borrowings and interactions in an accelerated “global village”. Ho’s continuous on-site research in Jingdezhen has allowed her to master traditional techniques while her fine art education and continued study of new technology lends a contemporary sensibility to her work using techniques such as digital decal printing. Ho is an assistant professor in the Art Department of Queens College, City University of New York. Her works can be found in permanent collections worldwide including the YiXing Ceramics Museum, YiXing, PR China, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangdong, Guangzhou, PR China, Jingdezhen Ceramics Institute, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, PR China, Icheon World Ceramic Center, Icheon, Korea, Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa, ON.
10.11.1985 HONG KONG (Rose Garden), 2010
Porcelain 24” x 14” x 12”
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Jim Kraft WASHINGTON, CERAMICS “My work in clay has been a succession/evolution of ideas over a thirty year period. I take certain elements that “work” in one series and often build the next series based on those elements. That could include the color of the clay body, the colors of the surface treatment, the texture of the surface, the form or the building technique. I enjoy working with the idea in mind of smaller parts making up the whole. Tiles covering a wall. Vessels made with coil and brick-like pieces, or cut and torn clay parts that make a vessel look basket-like. The vessel form appeals to me on a level that I don’t understand. It is a sort of mystery. When I am out in the world and see such a form I am immediately drawn to it. As much as I am concerned with surface texture it is ultimately the simple form of a vessel that appeals to my eye. I would like to think my work, and the act of making the work, connects me with past cultures who used the same materials to make vessels for ceremony or everyday use. I like the idea of being a part of the long history of people making things with their hands.”
KEEP RUTILE Earthenware Clay 32” x 14” x 14”
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Calvin Ma CALIFORNIA, CERAMICS Calvin Ma is a ceramic artist based in San Francisco, CA, where he earned his MFA in sculpture at the Academy of Art University. Ma’s action figure based sculptures explore his personal experiences with social anxiety. Ma explains, “Even as a child I was reserved and apprehensive, so I turned to toys to keep me entertained. I believe the tactile activity of playing with them coupled with my active imagination helped establish this passion for the action figure early on. There was something about picking up your favorite hero or villain and creating stories and adventures that captivated me. It felt only natural to tap into this childlike sense of exploration and storytelling through my artwork.” There is something about his sculptures that most people relate to, as they are wildly popular and sell quickly in all venues. He has exhibited nationally and many awards including the Artery Award at the California Clay Competition in Davis, CA and the ACGA National Clay and Glass Exhibition’s first place award in Brea, CA. Ma’s works can be found in museum collections including the Crocker Art Museum and private collections worldwide.
CRUISE ON Stoneware, porcelain, glaze 16” x 8”
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Nuala O’Donovan IRELAND, CERAMICS O’Donovan’s work combines regular pattern with the characteristics of irregular patterns and forms from nature. Each element of the pattern is individually made and the form is constructed slowly over a period of weeks or months. The finished forms are resolved, but retain a sense of potential change. The patterns are regularly irregular and the patterns and forms are self-similar. O’Donovan explains: “My decision to research patterns and forms from nature stemmed from my interest in the narrative quality of irregularities in patterns. The history behind a scarred or broken surface is what fascinates me. The evidence of a response to random events visible in patterns in nature, is testament to the ability of living organisms to recover, to respond, and to continue growing and changing. It is the imperfections in the patterns caused by a unique experience that are evidence of the life force in living organisms.” Born in Cork City, Ireland, O’Donovan spent a number of years living and working in the UK, Australia and the US before returning to Cork where she currently resides. She completed a BA (Hons) in ThreeDimensional Design at Middlesex University in the UK and earned her MA in ceramics at the Crawford College of Art and Design in Ireland. Since graduating she has earned numerous awards and her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work resides in private and public collections in the UK, US, Ireland, Europe and Russia.
TEASEL WALL PIECE Unglazed porcelain 17.75” x 19” x 8.25”
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Geoffrey Pagen CALIFORNIA, CERAMICS Growing up in California, Pagen studied Ceramics at Palo Alto High School, graduated from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington with Honors and a BFA in Studio Art then attended graduate school at the Rhode Island School of Design where he earned his MFA in Ceramics. His wall reliefs are created with many types of glazes on large slabs of clay. “There is quite obviously an affinity for Abstract Expressionism and the desire for simple geometric shapes in my work. The influence of nature and geology are prevalent. Complex textures, patterns of uncertain origin, and the identity of clay are my main concerns. Yet these simple compositions become departure points for an extraordinary range of surface treatments, from the austere to the indulgent.” Pagen’s commissioned projects for the public and private sector truly span a global context, having created over 75 site specific and sensitive projects throughout the United States and abroad. A recipient of a Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Fellowship Grant from the Oregon Arts Commission, Pagen was also the Head of the Ceramics Program at Reed College in Portland, Oregon from 1979-2014.
CARBON Ceramic 29” x 19” x 2”
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Frances Priest SCOTLAND, CERAMICS Frances Priest’s ceramic work explores pattern and ornament in decorative art and design; where it is found, how it is used and the craft processes involved in its production. From her studio in Edinburgh, Frances creates intricately decorated ceramic forms, exploring and reinterpreting languages of ornament from different cultures, places and periods in history. Priest has completed several recent high profile commissions in the UK, the most recent a series of permanent installations at Raasay House on the Isle of Raasay. Her works can also be found in permanent collections worldwide, including The Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK, McManus Galleries Dundee, UK, The Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, UK, The National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK, The Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead, UK, The International Museum of Ceramics, Faenza, Italy, and The International Museum of Contemporary Ceramics Ichon, Korea.
GATHERING PLACES - COLLAGE #3 Ceramic Sculpture 7.5” x 16.5”
Photo credit: Shannon Tofts Photography
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Lara Scobie SCOTLAND, CERAMICS Scobie studied at the Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts in London as well as the Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. Her ceramic vessels beautifully encompass the realms of fine craft and design, and it is the dynamic interplay of these realms that motivates Scobie’s practice. “Technical expertise and experience are always challenged by each different set of influences, from pragmatic considerations to artistic instinct, and it is this space between that I am most interested in; it is where technique, material and creative insight meet,” Scobie explains. Scobie’s works are included in numerous permanent collections including, Beaches Museum, Kansas State University, MO, McManus Galleries, Dundee, UK, Museum of Auckland, New Zealand, Paisley Museum, Scotland, Shipley Museum & Art Gallery, Gateshead and Triennale de Porcelaine, Nyon, Switzerland. Scobie’s collections of vessels fully demonstrate her practice and the underlying theme of balance. By integrating drawing, surface mark making and volume, Scobie’s works exhibit a playful experimentation between space and pattern alongside hue and texture, utilizing both the decorated and void surface areas.
ENSEMBLE COLLECTION #3 Porcelain (three pieces) 11” x 4” x 4”(each)
Photo credit: Shannon Tofts Photography
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Avital Sheffer AUSTRALIA, CERAMICS Avital Sheffer is a ceramic artist based on the North Coast of New South Wales, Australia. Sheffer grew up in Israel and moved to Australia in 1990. She builds generous ceramic vessel forms, employing hand building and sculpting techniques along with a unique printing practice to which she brings her life experience in working with other mediums. Her life-long engagement with multi-faceted Middle Eastern cultures, history and design leads her inquiry into fundamental human concerns. Through her work she explores human complexities including materiality and spirituality, origins and the contemporary, language and memory. Strong in presence and refined in detail, Sheffer has developed a unique aesthetic language. Her works are contained and voluptuous, architectural and anthropomorphic, intimate and universal and layered with details and meaning. While speaking of ancient civilizations, the idiosyncratic forms and intricate surfaces of the vessels ground her work firmly in the contemporary. Sheffer’s work has been exhibited extensively in Australia, the US and the UK. It has been presented at major fairs (including Collect, Art London and SOFA), has won numerous awards including the Josephine Ulrick prize for Excellence, The Gold Coast International Ceramic Award and The Border Art Prize. Sheffer has presented and demonstrated her craft in conferences internationally, has received Australia Council grants for new work and in 2014 was awarded the Australia Council for the Arts grant. Her work is held in public collections at the National Gallery of Australia, Powerhouse Museum (Sydney, Australia), Atelier d’Art de France (Paris, France), Manly Art Gallery & Museum (Sydney, Australia), The Jewish Museum of Australia, Regional Galleries across Australia, as well as in numerous private, corporate and foundation collections in Australia and the United States.
CHALCOS VII Clay 17.3” x 14.2” x 7.1”
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Sheryl Zacharia NEW MEXICO, CERAMICS Zacharia creates visual poetry in the form of ceramic sculpture. After studying painting, she spent many years pursuing a career as a singer-songwriter before she began working in clay, studying and working in various Potteries, her natural skill quickly recognized and developing into teaching positions and national exhibitions. Zacharia completed an eight month extended residency at The Museum of Arts and Design in New York City and in 2009 and 2013, received a grant from NoMAA, (Northern Manhattan Artists Alliance). After a lifetime in New York City, Zacharia relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2014 where she currently works as a full time studio artist primarily in ceramics but has also returned to painting. “The intention of my art is not to tell a story, but to create objects that influence and enhance the space around them. The textured, patterned and linear details help the eyes travel deliberately around the forms. I find the combination of raw and refined surfaces echoes the inevitable marriage of new and old. Pattern and form are rhythm, palette is harmony, lines and shapes are lyrical,” Zacharia explains. Her work can be found in museum collections including the Raccine Art museum and private collections around the world.
MONDRIAN MOON Ceramic sculpture 19.5” x 27” x 7”
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MIXED MEDIA
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Ran Adler FLORIDA, ASSEMBLAGE Drawn to elements of nature Adler uses a variety of organic materials - seedpods, horsetail reeds, mahogany pods, sea grapes and other found, natural components to create his works. Through a process of gathering, sorting, cutting, weaving, wiring and sometimes burning he explores the essence of repetition found in various religious cultures finding that his work has given him a way of meditation and intentional prayer. He explains: “Art is often, for the artist, an exercise in personal growth. For me, as I work on the tapestry of my life story, I find the repetitive nature of my art to be a form of prayer and a path to strengthen my personal discipline.” Ran Adler currently lives and works in Naples, Florida. Much of his work is heavily influenced from past experiences with nature. As a young boy, he would stand on the banks of the Missouri River and stare into the currents running to the main flow, sometimes rotating into furious whirlpools. Now, forty years later, it is in the natural elements that surrounded him as a child that form his works, representing the primal forces of wind and water. Adler’s works are in public and private collections across the United States and South America.
WHIRLPOOL Horsetail and Thorns 8’ x 6’
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Keke Cribbs AUSTRALIA, GLASS Having studied glass at Pilchuk Glass School, ceramics at Penland Craft School and metal techniques at Pratt Fine Art Center, Cribbs applies formal, technical understanding to an intuitive understanding of fundamental human narratives that resonate across cultures and individual experience. She creates artworks that express universal human stories with beauty, humor and intelligence. Cribbs’ career spans nearly 40 years. While her primary medium has been reverse painting with vitreous enamels on sheet glass, she builds sculptural works using ceramics, concrete, wood, metals, fabric, paper, printing, collage and painting. She is based on Whidbey Island, North of Seattle in the Northwestern US, but her extensive international and domestic travels throughout her life have inspired and continue to inspire her work directly. For Cribbs, conceptual ideas are more important than the material itself, but her ability to craft with diverse materials in the spirit of a Renaissance artist who loves and understands the science of each material puts her in a very small category. Cribbs’ works reside in many museum collections both nationally and internationally, including the Museum of Art and Design (NY), Corning Museum of Glass (NY), and Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art (Japan).
VOYAGE OF THE BAKU Reverse fired enamels on clear glass for mosaics, painted wood base 24” x 21” x 7”
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Lewis Knauss PHILADELPHIA, MIXED MEDIA A Fellow of the American Craft Council and Professor Emeritus, Moore College of Art and Design, Lewis Knauss is well known as a master of his craft. His works have been shown in major museums across the United States, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Cooper-Hewitt, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and abroad, at the Design Museum in Finland, the Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts in Switzerland and the Hermitage Museum in Russia. Though rooted in fiber, he also considers his works to be landscapes. The textures, materials and processes of textiles allow Knauss to explore ideas about landscape, identity and belonging. The significance of place in our lives is central to his work. Much of his work refers to places important within his own life, but during the past decade, the mountains of Colorado, the desert and the woodlands of America’s Southwest have become more central. “From my earliest visits, I realized that situating one’s self within the vast landscapes of the West required time and close attention; I could not walk unaware of my surroundings. Schooling myself to notice changes mindfully from day to day, enabled me to position myself within the landscape and appreciate its silences. Noticing changes over time and paying attention to details of the landscape allow one to be part of it – situating oneself by being totally present and then appreciating its silences.” Knauss translates the time spent paying attention into his process and the labor of making. “The silence is contained in the meditations that allow these works to happen.” Knauss recently retired after decades of teaching- at the Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia University, and Moore College of Art and Design and will continue to work as a studio artist in Philadelphia.
GHOST GREEN Linen, waxed linen, reed, twigs, acrylic paint 20.5” x 20.5” x 3”
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Gugger Petter CALIFORNIA, MIXED MEDIA Petter’s work continues to grow each year in popularity and is currently collected in high demand with continued high profile commissions, the most recent, a portrait of US President Bill Clinton unveiled in Washington, DC in 2015 at a ceremony attended by Mr. Clinton. Petter’s works are made from newspaper, hand woven using a unique technique developed by the artist specifically for the material, which she selects for each work and rolls into tubes. The artist explains, “I have always been inspired by challenge, so when I decided to work with newspaper, it was in fact due to the limitations/difficulty this material presented - both in regard to color palette and fragility. My manipulation of the tubes makes my work very strong, and the color limitation is a challenge that inspires me for each work I create”. The informative aspect of newspaper adds an important element of historicism to each work, holding within it world and local news of the particular time frame it was made within. Petter’s work is highly collected worldwide and can be found in numerous permanent collections including the Danish Embassy, Washington DC, Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, Royal Danish Embassy, Mexico City, Mexico, The Museum of National History (Fredricksborg Castle), Hillerod, Denmark, and The White House Collection, Washington, DC.
WOMAN WITH RED HAIR Newspaper & hemp 72” x 52”
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Melinda Rosenberg OHIO, MIXED MEDIA Rosenberg creates three dimensional wall sculptures out of new, natural and found wood objects, drawn to the material through its representation of time and memory, and inspired by its intimacy with nature. She explains: “I love how wood holds the memory of its growth within its grain, and how wood delays to reveal its growth structure. Once I find the wood with the right lecture or grain, I try to highlight the nature of the wood as I construct the pieces. When weathered wood reveals grain and appears soft and decayed, I am embracing age. When a peeling chair reveals layers of different colored paint, the history of that chair becomes a part of my work. All of this wood gives me.” Each of Rosenberg’s series centers around a specific look or shape of wood for comparison. Deceptively simple, the repetition encourages the viewer to look twice and notice the subtle differences. The “Boat Series” consists of long and narrow shaped pieces, the “Stick Series” evokes a connection to sensuality and the “Unfolding” series, Rosenberg’s most recent series, focuses more on painting. Rosenberg states: “Just as the driver is painted from the front and side view on the window of a 1950’s era tin toy car, this series explores the area between painting and sculpture. All of the history and weight of mark making is at play, but countered with the self consciousness of seeing around the painting to the back. Paint is sanded smooth, emphasizing its’ illusion-ism. The physicality of wood counters the apparent depth and atmosphere of paint.” While her forms are contemporary, Rosenberg has a historical and eclectic influence drawing from chashitsu architecture, a traditional Japanese structure for tea ceremonies, and extensive crosscountry travel. She began working with wood in graduate school at The Ohio State University, before teaching art for almost 30 years. Now retired, she is pursuing her dream of creating wood sculptures. Her work is exhibited in both public and private collections nationwide.
UNFOLDING Wood, paint 62” x 32” x 12”
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SCULPTURE SCULPTURE
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Chris Hill NEW MEXICO, SCULPTURE While best known for his large scale wall sculptures, Hill works in a variety of sizes fusing painting & sculpture together with a designer’s eye. After constructing a metal form with precise craftsmanship, he takes a painterly approach and hand paints the finished colors and gradations in a palette inspired by travels as far-flung as Tallinn, Estonia to Valparaiso, Chile; Porto, Portugal to Rotorua, New Zealand. Most recently, the beauty of the American Southwest has inspired his latest body of work; Hill recently relocated from Chicago to Santa Fe, NM. Hill studied design and graduated from the American Academy of Art in Chicago where he also taught digital design for many years. He began exhibiting his sculpture in 1990, and has since exhibited in SOFA Chicago, New York & Miami, Art Chicago, Art Palm Beach, Art of the 20th Century: New York and Expo Chicago. His work is held in public and private collections worldwide.
SPANISH MOON Steel and acrylic 21” x 19” x 10”
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Gino Miles NEW MEXICO, SCULPTURE Working primarily in fabricated stainless steel and bronze, Miles chooses materials to reflect, absorb or blend with their surroundings: from blue skies to the reflection of the viewer, creating a balance between the ephemeral and the present. A curvilinear, weightless appearance rendered through heavy metal materials challenges the fundamentally static nature of sculpture; many of Miles sculptures can be turned or rotated. Miles’ large scale works are prominently featured in many permanent and private collections throughout the World, including Spencer Museum at University of Kansas, Evansville Museum, Disney Corporate Headquarters, the cities of Cerritos and Napa, CA and are exhibited internationally at major fairs.
ONE EIGHTY Stainless steel 84” x 84”
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FIBER FIBER
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Judith Content CALIFORNIA, FIBER Judith Content is a world-renowned textile artist based in Palo Alto, CA. Her hand-dyed, pieced and quilted silk wall pieces are exhibited nationally and internationally, have been included in major public and private collections throughout the world and continue to enjoy the highest level of recognition. Content was selected for inclusion in the 15th International Triennial of Tapestry at the Central Museum of Textiles in Ludz, Poland (2016), and the Texas Quilt Museum organized a retrospective exhibition of her work in the same year. Content graduated from San Francisco State University in 1979 with a BA in Fine Art, emphasis in textiles, and has been a full time studio artist for over 35 years now. Her work was featured in the landmark “Craft in America: Expanding Traditions” National Touring Exhibition and the companion book to the PBS television series, as well as “To Dye For: A World Saturated in Color” at the de Young Museum in California. Two of her works are in the de Young’s permanent collection; additional museum collections of note include the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, The Museum of Quilts and Textiles in San Jose, CA and the International Shibori Collection in Nagoya, Japan. Content’s contributions to the quilting and craft communities go beyond her own works. She has served as juror for Quilt National and Quilt Visions and as President of Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) where she created and established the SAQA Exhibition Program. Like the haiku, Content’s works explore the essence of an image, memory, or moment in time. She finds inspiration in the interplay of light and shadow that occurs within natural landscapes, employs a contemporary interpretation of the traditional Japanese dye technique called arashi-shibori and her works are often based on an abstract interpretation of the kimono form.
AFTERMATH Thai Silk and silk Charmeuse 63” x 70”
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Lesley Richmond VANCOUVER, FIBER Richmond constructs textiles that simulate organic surfaces by changing the structure of the fabric, rather than imposing a design on the surface of the cloth. She uses distressing techniques and chemical processes to change the surface structure of the fiber into an illusion of organic decay, creating beautiful tree and forest scapes that are highly collectable. Inspired by the architectural elegance of trees, tranquil and timeless, Richmond is interested in the symbolic significance of trees in human culture- their long lives allowing them to watch over many changes in history. Richmond’s work, which has been included in the Triennial of Tapestry in Ludz, Poland, is collected internationally, including Art in Embassies, Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD, and The Central Museum of Textiles, Lodz, Poland. Her work has recently been exhibited at the Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA, Wayne Art Center, Wayne, PA, Choengju International Craft Competition, South Korea and Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, NM.
WINTER LIGHT 4 Cotton / silk fabric 38” x 55”
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Carol Shinn COLORADO, FIBER Shinn’s photo-realistic machine-stitched images are known and highly regarded internationally. She has taught across the United States in programs including Arrowmont, Penland and Haystack, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ and Mesa Community College, Mesa, AZ. Her current work focuses on the natural landscape as well as on the aging and decay of buildings and other human artifacts. “My work is about not only seeing, but examining how humans see; how details and surfaces add up to create a thing or place, how those things are illuminated. I am interested in the control and isolation of information given by points of view, and how moods are perceived by the quality of light within the composition,” Shinn explains. Her work is in numerous public and private collections, including the Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO, Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI, and the Museum of Arts & Design, New York.
NO TRESPASSING Freestyle machine stitching 26” x 21”
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WORK PAINTING ON WORKS ONCANVAS CANVAS
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Hilario Gutierrez ARIZONA, ACRYLIC ON CANVAS Hilario began painting as a direct response to an epiphany he experienced in Monument Valley over 20 years ago. As an Arizona native with a rich ethnic heritage consisting of Aztec and Yaqui Indian from his maternal side and Austrian from his paternal side, Hilario always identified with the spirit of the American Southwest. But he had a life-long yearning to express this identity in visual form. After a period of experimenting with color and form, Hilario perfected his signature techniques and was selling his work within a year. “My abstract style expresses the harmony in the desert’s chaotic emotion of line, color and form. Emotion is the soul of my work inspired by the natural and man-made architecture of the landscape of Arizona. My explorations draw you in and allow you to wonder, remember, and awaken. I believe the eye can touch an image and reveal sensation. I create conjoined colors; so, like a prism, there is no separation of one color to the next. Thus, my work evokes a different emotion depending on one’s nearness to the canvas.” Hilario’s work has been exhibited throughout the US in galleries and at art fairs, and reside in numerous public and private collections.
COME FUL CIRCLE Acrylic on canvas 60” x 66”
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Krista Harris COLORADO, ACRYLIC ON CANVAS Located in southwest Colorado, Krista Harris is a full time modernist painter with work in numerous public and private collections around the world. Her work, while rooted in the abstract expressionist tradition, embraces a style that is uniquely her own. Elegantly composed and delicately balanced, it has a mesmerizing quality. Shapes and lines appear to morph in and out of focus, colors shift like seasons, and subtle imagery and whispers beneath the surface. Krista explains: “My work is driven by an intense curiosity about places and the ways in which they connect, divide or define us. How do we fit in, what’s our place in the world? Is it where we grow up or some adopted location that we connect with on a deeper level? The individual and unique parts of a place...it’s culture and traditions, the languages, ethnic and architectural components, the quality of light, the color of the wind, the food, climate and terrain are all visual pieces of the puzzle. A lifelong case of wanderlust has left me with a visual scrapbook of sights and sounds, even smells and bits of dialogue which seem to sneak into my work. I don’t intentionally set out to recreate a scene and I’m often surprised to see them. It’s rarely even a single location but bits and pieces jumbled together. They become blurry postcards and reconstructed maps that help me make sense of the world. Painting is a very physical process for me, beginning days or weeks before I ever begin. Each step is as integral to the process as the application of paint and mark, including reading and researching, stretching canvases, mixing new colors, searching for new tools and experimenting with methods of working.”
HOMAGE TO A HUMINGBORD Acrylic on canvas 36” x 36”
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Frank Buffalo Hyde NEW MEXICO, ACRYLIC ON CANVAS Artist Frank Buffalo Hyde (Onondaga/Nez Perce) believes it is the artist’s responsibility to represent the times in which they live. Transforming street art techniques into fine art practices, his humorous and acerbic narrative artworks do exactly that, using Icons to explore the miscommunication of cultures. Hyde is based in Santa Fe, NM, where he grew up and studied art at the Santa Fe Art Institute and Institute of American Indian Arts. His paintings are quickly garnering international attention and critical acclaim. In his current show at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, I-Witness Culture, Hyde investigates the space where Native Americans exist today. Hyde explains, “In a nation obsessed with sameness—afraid of difference—popular culture homogenizes indigenous cultures, “honoring” us with fashion lines, misogynistic music videos, or offensive mascots and Halloween costumes. Today, these stereotypes and romantic notions are irrelevant as a new generation of Native American artists uses social media to let the world know who they are. Today, we are the observers, as well as the observed. We are here, we are educated, and we define Indian art.” Jon Carver reviewed the show for several publications. “Zombie Nation belongs next to Turner’s great Slave Ship or Goya’s Saturn as a masterful indictment of a way of life that refuses to come to terms with its predatory past… or any undead future. And that’s just one painting. I-Witness Culture is Frank Buffalo Hyde at his most ferocious, as a satirist and chronicler of the nexus of indigenous cultures and the imploding mainstream corporate deal.” Hyde’s works have been exhibited internationally and are in major permanent collections including the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C., Institute of American Indian Arts Museum, Santa Fe, NM, The Iroquois Museum, Cobleskill, NY, The Longyear Museum, Colgate University Hamilton, NY, and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, Santa Fe, NM.
BUFFALO BURGER STUDY Acrylic on canvas 40” x 30”
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Udo Nöger CALIFORNIA, MIXED MEDIA ON CANVAS Light, its manifestations and its expression, is the single-minded focus of German-born Udo Nöger’s art. He captures, analyzes, reworks and reflects - each work an attempt to make the intangible tangible. Nögers paintings consist of three translucent canvas layers that absorb the light of their surroundings and appear to reflect it back at the viewer. Deceptively simple organic shapes, often not featured on the surface of the works, but placed in the middle layer canvas, introduce a deeper sense of space from which the light radiates out. The shapes also highlight contrasts between light and shade while creating a sense of fluidity and movement. Light is revealed in its truest sense, in both its physical manifestation and its inherent spirituality. Nöger’s paintings can be found in private and public collections around the globe, including, Metropolitan Museum, New York, Art Institute, Chicago, Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogota, Columbia, Museum of Contemporary Art, University of Sao Paulo, Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico and the Margulies Collection, Miami.
GLEICHLOS 4 Mixed media on canvas 25” x 28”
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