Island Projects (Amy Sacksteder and Nicole Pietrantoni) is official! We now have a few more shows lined up and a brand new website. Check out our Exhibitions page for info on the shows, including one in New York next month to coincide with the College Art Association Conference, February 9-12.
Last Map: Mirror, Last Map: Beacon, Last Map: Crosslit, each gouache and ink on paper, 11.5″ x 8.25″, 2010
I completed 3 more Last Map drawings in Iceland to total 30, which has been my goal for some time now. These latest drawings reflect my icy surroundings at the time I made them. Hopefully I can exhibit all 30 together in the near future.
Although I prefer to display them all simply taped to the wall, the wear and tear isn’t good for the drawings, so I need to get them framed. I have some ideas for framing them that should provide for some interesting installation opportunities.
In other news:
-I am pleased to have been mentioned in the 12.17.10 Chicago Tribune article about the best Chicago area art of 2010. Apparently there is an image of Bring in the Light in the print version, though I haven’t yet seen it myself.
-Also, Nicole Pietrantoni (who I met and collaborated with in Iceland) and I plan to be working together again soon under the name Island Projects. We hope to have a website up and running in the near future.
-Some of Amelia Earhart’s bones may have been found on Nikumaroro Island in the Pacific Ocean. Here’s the full article.
Ice Above, Fire Below | color transparencies, thread, cyanotypes and lithographs | dimensions variable (this installation approximately 96″ wide) | 2010, in collaboration with Nicole Pietrantoni, SÍM House, Reykjavík, Iceland.
Friday night was the opening of the residents’ exhibition, dubbed The Supreme Council of Higher Beings. There was some great work in the show and Mark was involved in an exciting collaboration/interactive music and sound-based performance with our friends Jan and Beer. It turned the opening into a party. A lot of people showed up and the residents received great feedback about all of the work, including an interactive Venn diagram connecting artists and related people in Iceland by Rebecca Key.
One of the best outcomes of this November residency has been meeting and and beginning a collaborative partnership with American artist Nicole Pietrantoni. She is in Iceland for a year on a Fulbright fellowship and a Leifur Eiriksson Foundation grant. This installation was our first collaborative endeavor.
Thursday, I’m hopping aboard the Wolverine from Ann Arbor to Chicago to see and stay with some good friends. Friday, I’m giving a lecture on my work (details below) at Northeastern Illinois University. It’s also the last day the show will be up, so come out if you can!
That afternoon, I board a plane to Toronto to meet Mark and Chris and Mary for Halloween weekend, Canada style.
Then Mark and I get on another couple of planes to head to Iceland again for the month of November. It will be a whirlwind, but needless to say, we’re a little excited. I’ll work on some ideas I have had bouncing around in my head and Mark will get his own studio to work on some music projects. Speaking of which, he has a new album out. Everything about it is AMAZING. Here is a link to his new website. Have a look and listen.
Talk details:
Friday, October 29
11 a.m.
Northeastern Illinois University, Fine Arts Center, FA 252
Directions to the talk.
Also, here is a Chicago Tribune review of the show.
Bon voyage!
Here are some images from my solo exhibition We are running… at Northeastern Illinois University’s Fine Arts Center Gallery. Much of this work appeared in my recent exhibition in at Pterodactyl in Philadelphia, but the postcard installation with the bottle of ash is new. The postcards are manipulated exhibition announcements from both solo exhibitions, mounted on Scrabble tile trays. The bottle contains sea glass and volcanic ash from the base of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano that erupted in Iceland this year. Exhibition details follow the images.
Amy Sacksteder: We are running…
October 4th-October 29th
The work included in this project is derived from the last moments of Amelia Earhart’s life and is used as a springboard to examine and confront mortality. The title is an excerpt of Earhart’s last words. The work is also influenced by the artists’s June 2010 residency in Iceland.
Artist Talk: Friday October 29th, 11am
Reception: Friday October 15th, 6-9pm
The Fine Arts Center Gallery
Northeastern Illinois University
5500 N St. Louis Ave
Chicago, IL 60625
The Gallery is located on the NEIU campus inside the Salme Harju Steinberg Fine Arts Center. Park in the lot the west side of campus via the entrances Foster or Bryn Mawr Avenues.
Directions here.
To see invividual images of pieces in the show, visit this page on my website.
In addition to my solo show, We are running… (just installed…phew!) at Northeastern Illinois University’s Fine Arts Center Gallery (more on that soon), I currently have work featured in some other group shows:
1) Sub Terrain at Work Gallery in Ann Arbor. Here’s more info, and a great review of the show, highlighting the works of friends Amanda Thatch and Ryan Molloy.
2) Interrupted Landscapes at Champion Contemporary in Austin. My pieces are in the wonderful company of work by Scott Hocking, Lori Nix and a host of other fantastic artists. This is the gallery’s debut exhibition and the space looks great. Check out the installation images from the show. My work, the Object Lesson panels are to the far right in the installation image below.
3) With/Drawn, an international contemporary drawing exhibition, hosted by The Drawing Room in Budapest. That’s my piece way back there over David’s right shoulder (he’s the fellow holding the paper). In Hungary, it’s practice to have the curator or another prominent person read a prepared statement about the exhibition.
I got to go to the opening of Sub Terrain, and I’m happy to hear the other openings were successful too!
I have some work in an upcoming show curated by Andrew Thompson (drawings and an installation). Here’s a sneak peak of a new installation in the show, with exhibition info to follow.
Museum, Monument (where we can go to save ourselves), transparency collage, sand, painted plaster and foam islands maquette, transparencies on projector, 2009-10
What lies below the surface of the physical, the perceptible, and the quantifiable? Invisible forces of the subconscious simmer until they come to a head in subtle circumstances of serendipity or in violent disruption, sparring with the perceived logic of life.
Sub Terrain is an all-media exhibition that invites artists to give vision to the invisible and explore the landscape of the immaterial and its convergence with the physical realm.
Artists:
Debra Broz, Mira Burack, Ginger Chase, Susan Evans, Rachel Frank, Matt Frieburghaus, Lauren Harlowe, Megan Heeres, Melissa Jones, Julie Lambert, Amanda Lechner, Ryan Molloy, Barbara Neri, Manisha Patel, Judy Rushin, Audrey Russell, Amy Sacksteder, Madeline Stillwell, Cedric Tai, Sally Schluter-Tardella, Amanda Thatch, Christopher Ulivo, B.J. Vogt, Scotty Wagner and Morgan Morel, Graem Whyte, Audra Wolowiec.
Work: Ann Arbor, 306 State Street, Ann Arbor, MI
Exhibition runs September 10th – October 5th
Opening Reception: September 10th 6-9 pm
Come out to the opening if you can!
Here are a few more shots from the show and last night’s opening. I really like the way the space was lit. Cheers to the good folks at Pterodactyl for pulling together the new side gallery (in which my show is situated) in under a week and for putting on a lovely opening.
Here are images from my show Our Improbable Existence at Pterodactyl in Philly. Here is more info about the show. The show was made possible by the support of the Philadelphia Art Hotel. To see individual pieces, peruse recent blog posts or visit my website. Off to the opening!
