Heather Gaudio Fine Art is pleased to present On Point, a four-person exhibition featuring new works by Sarah Amos, Beth Dary, Kathleen Kucka, and Susan Schwalb. The show will open with a public reception on June 25th, 5-7 pm, and runs through August 15th.
The artists in this exhibition have dedicated their careers to exploring various abstract aesthetics through different techniques and materiality. Their processes are universal and have transcended the ages and, in some instances, bridged the utilitarian spheres into the fine arts realm. Themes that preoccupy their formal artistic investigations include repetition, cultural rituals, complexity, natural systems and the role humans play on all of these, directly or indirectly.
Biomorphic and ritualistic forms become imaginative psychological landscapes for Sarah Amos, sourced from the personal and collective. The Australian artist is a non-conventional master printmaker specializing in Collagraph, a technique inspired by the intaglio tradition which involves constructing textured matrices with hand-inked incised marks to produce a singular impression. In 2014 Amos began experimenting with felt, acrylic and the stitched mark, being drawn to the tactile and rich qualities of the materials. In the context of the works in the show, the collagraph becomes the foundation after which Amos introduces felt, hand-stitched yarn and acrylic to build layer upon layer to create three-dimensional surfaces. For the artist, these dynamic, eye-catching, sculptural works developed unconsciously to become "portals through which to consider our interconnectedness with nature, its beauty, fragility and complex systems." Amos maintains an active national and international exhibition schedule as well as printmaking and teaching practices. Her works are in many private and museum collections, and she lives and works in Vermont.
Beth Dary investigates the symbiotic relationship we have with the environment and the role we play in shifting its evolution over time. Her works explore water in its manifestations and effects, such as the liminal spaces between land and water where new forms and organisms on the macro and micro scale develop and flourish. Dary grew up in Cape Cod and spent time in New Orleans and other coastal areas, places that informed her awareness of how fragile the waterway ecosystems are when tested or stressed. The exhibition will feature the artist's kinetic and wall-mounted push-pin sculpture, a new series created with wonderfully colored glass push-pins taking on the appearance of dynamic sea urchins and other organisms. Other works featured are drawings on hand-made paper with encaustic that reference littoral patterns created by shifting tides. Dary has been the subject of many solo and group exhibitions, and her work is in private and museum collections. She lives and works in New York.
Kathleen Kucka is exhibiting a new series of paintings that take her artistic process in a new direction. Instead of burning or scorching her canvases for which she is known, Kucka makes hard edged symmetrical patterns and shapes by cutting and splicing the canvas. These she lays over another canvas that has been painted with acrylic, adopting the appearance of quilted surfaces with a rhythmic geometric language. The spontaneous underpainting in some of the works can be fluid, creating unexpected colorful cosmos or nebulae within each pattern, whereas others take on more syncopated, rhythmic lines of color. In other works, Kucka unapologetically lets the material speak for itself, splicing it into patterned slices, allowing it to droop over to reveal richly painted bands of blues, greens and reds. The material spills over beyond the picture plane, which not only creates a shadow but extends beyond the two-dimensional edge to become a third dimensional object. Kucka has been exploring materiality for over three decades and she has been the subject of many solo and group exhibitions. Her works are in many notable private and museum collections, and she lives and works in New York and Connecticut.
A leading specialist and champion of silverpoint, Susan Schwalb has been working prolifically with the medium for over five decades. Silverpoint was a medium favored during the Renaissance in Italy and the Flemish regions, with luminaries such as Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt van Rijn among others using it as their drawing material of choice. As red chalk and graphite emerged, silverpoint waned only to be revived later in the 19th Century. Today, silverpoint, as well as other metalpoint materials, such as gold, platinum, copper, bronze, pewter and aluminum are used, but mostly for figurative or representational work. Also of note, the material is an unforgiving medium -- once a line is drawn, it cannot be altered or erased. It therefore requires great skill and self-assuredness to create a mark. Schwalb bridges the historic with the contemporary, presenting exemplary geometric abstractions made with perfect, fine lines or grided patterns across beautifully colorful prepared surfaces. The various metals used in her mark making tend to shimmer as the ambient light shifts. Schwalb has been the subject of many solo and group exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad, and her work is in many important private and museum collections. The artist lives and works in New York City.
