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If you could actualize an art exhibition by clicking on an icon of a 'twig,'you can imagine pulling up an array of imagery and structures comprising all aspects of 'twigginess' -- delicateness, crackle, promise (of flower, fruit or fire); intricacy of pattern, simplicity of material; purveyance and multiplicity; division, deviation, divination.
We propose that at this millennial transition, the elemental twig holds particular sway. Breaking sky into ground, ambivalently significant of change, and daintily supporting linkage, it has served as a contemplative, practical and decorative devise for nearly as long as its fossils testify. Today, in an art climate infatuated with technology, the twig recalls our connection to nature, and that we are as contingent and as the leaves that cyclically bud, unfold and drop from the branch of a tree. Are we to replace "the golden bough" with a new paradigm; detached from the vital forces and subtle variations that define us, or will we merely circle round in our relative perspective of our place in the grand scale?
These considerations link the works sited below. We gathered these pieces from artists living in New York, New Orleans and Los Angeles. Diverse ages and backgrounds comprise the group. Media ranges from photography to painting, installation and sculpture. A crispness accentuates the extremes from delicate prints to voluminous sculpture. The centerpiece will be an expansive, viewer-encompassing installation, reminiscent of a zoological habitat.
Overall, the feel of the show would owe something to Orientalism, naturalism and rninimalism. An elegant labyrinthine floorplan would be developed from the surprising range of scale. As a red herring, a vintage photograph of the fashion model, Twiggy may "front" the announcement. Preferably, this exhibition would take place in the Spring of 1999, in a venue whose design would compliment its characteristics.
The artists include:
Wendy Adest - a local sculptor and installation artist, has recently cast a series of small sculptures resembling medieval maces wherein the points are an amalgam of dolls arms, lobster claws, branches and utensils; entitled "Family Tree," they simultaneously evoke evolution and the food chain. See slides #15 &16.
John Elder- photographs real twigs painted in artificial abstraction. A native Californian, Elder also makes sculptures parodying garden architecture, often emphasizing latticework, in itself a formalization of twig structure. Both types of work are represented here in the first two slides.
Dave Halliday - a New Orleans-based photographer showing in New York and Atlanta, focuses an anachronized realism on the hubris of life, developing intimate object portraits in his wide-ranging travels. For this exhibition, we chose Tonganese fish nets (slide #9) and Nantucket brambles (#10).
Lucy Hodgson - a mature New York artist, has been working for decades in wood and wicker. She transforms these natural materials into surreal landscapes that offer narratives with the eloquence of haiku. Slides #11 &12.
Kim Lee Kahn - a Los-Angeles-based installation artist who has sculpted architectural spaces with materials as diverse and ephemeral as hair, tissue, stethoscope-tubing and the human voice, will display a collection of new work that uses sticks to mock crutches (slides #4&5) the way crutches mock human limbs.
Laura Parker - arranges her photographs in groups of calculated focus. Throughout her exposure in galleries throughout Los Angeles, she has married trompe l'oeil illusionism with intense observation of the natural world. (Slides #5 &6) For this show, Parker's installation will emphasize a dialogue between presence and absence.
Laura Paddock - a migrant from New York to Los Angeles, combines painting and printmaking in tapestry-like tableaus with unique installation techniques. In this show, a rendition of and from the perspective of tree-tops will drape an entire wall. Two of Paddock's recent installations are documented in slides #13 &14.
Pam Strugar - is a local artist who meshes sculpture and installation with design. Recently graduated from Art Center's MFA program, Strugar has already exhibited a number of installations in the area. Her collaboration with Acerol is diagrammed the enclosed Xeroxes. A relevant resin piece is included in slides #19 &20.
Miki Warner- an experienced photographer living on the coast will exhibit excerpts from her series of pinhole-photo plant specimens collected on her long daily walks. These organic images mesh East and West in their stark simplicity and romantic appeal - as elegant as ikebana, these fuzzy plant studies appear fixed in the periphery of an ambient vision. See examples in slides #7 &8.
Ari Ben-Ami Young - a recent graduate of Art Center, Ari currently designing lures for the fishing trade, works in wood and resin with Wolfgang Laib intensity. Slides #17 and 18 exhibit a piece using minnows that he displayed in the student gallery.
-- Laura Paddock & Laura Parker