October Issue 2001
Gallery W.D.O. in Charlotte, NC, Features Works by Christina Shmigel
Gallery W.D.O. in Charlotte, NC, is pleased to host . by Christina Shmigel, on view Oct. 2 through Nov. 10, 2001.
Cyclone/dust collector forms from an industrial past inspire the new work by Christina Shmigel. Complex systems of pipes and fittings move in and out of steel forms that are tied to the specific architectural space of the gallery. Whether hanging or traveling the full length of the wall, there is a human element that seems to be very quietly erotic.
Christina Shmigel says of her work, "What tantalize me in the urban landscape are the traces of history, fragments carrying associations of time and purpose, manifestations of human activity." Shmigel finds that nowhere this been truer to her than in St. Louis to say that her sculptural work is tied to a sense of place. Living here since 1995, Shmigel has grown more and more attentive to the particular qualities of this city, the remnants of its architectural past in its grandness and in its pragmatic, agro-industrial face. From her downtown studio windows, she has an encyclopedic view of office buildings with their ornamental cornices, the "hoovervilles" of outbuildings, elevator shafts, skylights and pigeon coops on their roofs, a slice of the Arch between office buildIngs, bridges across the Mississippi, smokestacks, the big blue letters of the FRESH grain elevator, the peeling pentimentos of advertisements for long closed businesses barely visible on facades of a particular shade of brick. Currently, preparing this exhibition, Shmigel is attempting to re-present the vista and the density she sees in that view."
Shmigel continues, "Plumbing has become a major component of my sculpture. The fittings join sections of the work together but they also reiterate the forms and connections that fascinate me in the urban view. The sense of the human presence that ???Gohkle refers to is there even in the names of the fittings: nipples, unions, and couplings. The 'toys' in the show, miniature versions of the sculptural work, allow the viewer the same fun I have of inventing and re-inventing the forms, a kind of tinker toy for adults."
Assistant professor of sculpture at Webster, Shmigel received her BFA at the Rhode Island School of Design and two MFA's from Brooklyn College and SIU-Carbondale. She has exhibited nationally and internationally; most recently at the International Environmental Art Symposium in South Korea. The work in the exhibit was created during her sabbatical leave and supported in part by an NEA funded residency at North Carolina's Penland School of Crafts.
For more information check our NC Commercial Gallery listings or call the gallery at 704/333-9123 or on the web at (http://www.gallerywdo.com).
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