The Guttenberg Arts Gallery announced MADE HERE: Winter 2020, a group exhibit featuring the work of Winter Artists in Residence, including Lucas Almeida, Jason Robert Bauer, Vassilina Dikidjieva, Charlotte Massip, and Adams Puryear.
It’s on view by appointment only from August 1 to 30. The works were created during the artists’ three-month Space & Time Artist Residency at the gallery.
To promote social distancing, Guttenberg Arts has a new online visitor schedule form that members of the public can use to schedule their gallery visit. it can be found at www.guttenbergarts.org/exhibitions.
Winter Artists in Residence
During his time at Guttenberg Arts, Lucas Almeida delved deeper into his creative process by exploring a range of mediums, including drawing, etching, and poetry. Almeida’s daily practice of drawing forms the foundation for his other pursuits.
Finding shapes with meaningful content and a balance between light and dark result in a series of sequential drawings that express movement and transformation. Some themes arise at the spur of a moment.
Almeida believes that art should help people feel more alive. He compares reality to a really big cake.
“Everyone has a slice of cake, the same way each one experiences reality in a unique way,” Almeida said. That ‘slice’ keeps on growing accordingly with what each one does in life. No one knows for sure what that cake tastes like, some people say that is an orange cake, other’s say it’s carrot, and there’s a bunch who wishes it would be a chocolate cake, but no one truly knows, all we have is some hints, some close clues to whatever it might be.”
Jason Robert Bauer pursues equanimity, or mental calmness. He creates mental, physical, and spiritual spaces through sculpture, video, installation, sound, and light.
His work explores concepts of perception and inter-connectivity with an emphasis on minutiae and “vernacular construction,” using heirlooms and repurposed objects.
Bauer has been working primarily with glass for more than 13 years and, while at Guttenberg Arts, acted as a consultant and the pilot artist in residence for the newly established glassblowing studio.
MADE HERE
Vassilina Dikidjieva’s work is linked to her architectural fascination with cultural heritage and contemporary art. Discovering ancient places in Bulgaria, Ethiopia, Greece, Egypt, and Italy felt to her like time travel.
During her travels, Dikidjieva finds themes from history and mythology which she strives to rethink in her paintings, prints, and drawings.
“Juxtapositions of opposites have been an important approach in my architectural and artistic projects, and I recently embraced printmaking to revisit with increased clarity and intensity ancient symbols, elements, and iconic images in the context of current hot topics and events,” Dikidjieva said.
While in residence at Guttenberg Arts, Dikidjieva expanded her portfolio to include screen printing. One of her main explorations was a tribute to Leonardo da Vinci in which she reflects the phenomenon that 500 years after his death, Mona Lisa is more popular than ever, outshining other art icons and becoming a symbol of the Louvre Museum.
Charlotte Massip questions the visible reality and the gap between the visible reality and its representation. For her, the body is as much a material as a reflection, an object of study as a subject of thought. In her work the two themes constantly overlap, illustrated through Massip’s sharp and intimate engravings.
Adams Puryear uses the ceramic vessel among other components to reflect his life experiences steeped in culture and technology. Puryear’s ceramic objects are bluntly shaped, unrefined, and appear primitive, with marks from hand and fingerprints left exposed.
Puryear has made this uncomplicated style of clay works for several years and wants to cultivate new, complex forms and surfaces to incorporate into that style.
Residents can schedule their visits to the Guttenberg Arts Gallery by going to www.guttenbergarts.org/exhibitions For more information, contact matt@guttenbergarts.org or 201-868-8585.
The Guttenberg Art Gallery is free and open to the public by appointment only.
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