Posts Tagged ‘Detroit’

To Arrive Where We Started

To Arrive Where We Started | Amy Sacksteder and Fiona Short

18 August – 15 September 2012

Exhibition Public Reception: Saturday August 18 from 7 to 10pm 

Regular Hours: 1pm – 5pm Saturday. Other hours by appointment

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We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. T. S. Eliot

The exhibition “To Arrive Where We Started” grew out of conversations between Ypsilanti based Amy Sacksteder and New Zealander Fiona Short about common themes in their artistic practices. The title, a quote from T.S. Eliot, can be read as a summing up of their respective global wanderings or as a shared tendency of returning to earlier work to see what more it can reveal with time. Either way it indicates awareness of balancing new experience with reflection and looking again.

Sacksteder’s work is rooted in painting and drawing, but for this show might also include installation. Combining source material from her surroundings, life experiences and historical context, and often incorporating landscape and natural imagery, she constructs documents of time and place that are both beautiful and complexly referenced.

Short’s subtle and enigmatic photographs are grounded in the ordinary and are as much about the process of looking as about what is being looked at. Her images reveal a sense of place and order, engaging the viewer in the way that a quiet voice may command attention. One senses that for Short, each image is a small lesson, a discovery of unexpected delight, and that each photograph is an opportunity to communicate this discovery.

Biographies

Amy Sacksteder received a BA in English from the University of Dayton in 2001 and an MFA in painting from Northern Illinois University in 2004. She currently lives and works in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where she is an Associate Professor of Art at Eastern Michigan University.

Fiona Short completed her MFA at The Glasgow School of Art in 2009 and has since travelled to New Zealand, Iceland and the US to participate in residencies and exhibitions. She currently lives and works in Glasgow, and teaches in the Continuing Education Department at The Glasgow School of Art.

The two artists met at the SÍM Residency Reykjavik in June 2010.

the studio visit

photo credit: Lauren Rice

Last summer Detroit artist Lauren Rice visited my (old storefront) studio in Ypsi. She wrote a great article about my work  and her experience (which just came out the other day) for The Studio Visit. Thanks Lauren!

Floe installed

The exhibition LOST and FOUND took place at three different venues: the PASSENGER Temporary Project Space in Detroit, Starkweather Art Center in Romeo, Michigan and Detroit MONA in the Russell Industrial Center.

The work in all of the spaces is being documented, but for now here’s an iphone image of my painting Floe, installed at MONA.

 

LOST and FOUND: Belief and Doubt in Contemporary Pictures

I’ll have work in this upcoming show, about which I’m really excited. The artists in the show are wonderful, and it marks the opening of a fantastic new residency program in Detroit. Please come out to the opening if you can make it.

From the press release for the exhibition:

LOST and FOUND: Belief and Doubt in Contemporary Pictures marks the public launch of programming for PASSENGER , which will be a residency program and project space in Detroit. This show announces the vision, goals and type of ideas that PASSENGERseeks to support while we work towards establishing a permanent location. Showcasing the best local artists in the context of top emerging practitioners from around the country, LOST andFOUND looks at artists engaging with the concept of pictures in the era after the ‘death and resurrection of painting’ in which images in any traditional capacity have become impossible in a critical context. In light of this impossibility comes the demand for a fresh investigation. LOST and FOUND showcases a generation of artists that are aware of the historical critique of the language of painting/images. This awareness informs their practice and a traversal of the liminal space between belief/doubt structures their conceptual framework.”

The gallery is open Thursday-Sunday 11am – 7pm

Passenger Detroit’s Temporary Project Space >> 1261 Woodward, in The Lofts of Merchants Row, Detroit | April 05-May 06. Opening Reception: April 5, 2012, 5-8pm

Island: 22 Artists on Iceland

This last week, 12 artists (of the 22 in the show) descended on the Ypsi/Detroit area to install work, conduct crits and attend the openings and lecture surrounding this exhibition, curated by myself and EMU’s Gallery Director Greg Tom.

Island has been a year in the making and the week involved group dinners, lazy European breakfasts, tours of galleries, museums and other sites in Ypsi, Ann Arbor and Detroit. It was a wonderful reunion for those artists who were all at SÍM together last June and a great opportunity to meet new people for everyone else.  Thanks to all who were involved and attended!

If you’re in the area, the shows will be up through December 12. Check EMU’s Art Department website for hours and contact someone at ‘CAVE for an appointment to view that exhibition.