October 2011

RIVERWORKS Gallery in Greenville, SC, Features Works by Jessica Drenk

The RIVERWORKS Gallery in Greenville, SC, is presenting the exhibit, Aggregate, featuring works by Jessica Drenk, on view through Nov. 6, 2011. A reception will be held on Oct. 7, from 6-9pm.

An aggregate is a collection, a sum. Jessica Drenk collects humble individual ingredients and through the process of heat combined with wax or porcelain creates wall installations. Her collections give insignificant particulars density and substance without individual hierarchy. Her “manys” become one without losing their identities.

The particulars and the installations appear as troves of mysterious natural science or archeological information. In Procession Drenk takes hundreds of bits of natural wood and builds a wall structure that suggests a very large computer chip or the cylinder of a music box. We sense “information” but without any means for retrieving it.

In Drenk’s wall pieces, Bibliophylum and Membria Varius she does not build but gathers. She titles and presents her collections as if they were ancient species again suggesting some mysterious, irretrievable information within her museum-like presentations. Drenk invites us to discover the sources of her collections. Her manufactured sources may have become our natural world.

Drenk was raised in Montana. She has an MFA from the University of Arizona, graduated Cum Laude from Pomona College, and is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa. Her work has been pictured in Sculpture Magazine and seen in shows at the International Grounds for Sculpture in New Jersey, the Albuquerque Museum, the Tucson Museum of Art, the International Book Fair of Contemporary Creative Books in Marseilles, France, as well as galleries across the United States. Drenk currently lives and works in Clemson, SC.

RIVERWORKS Gallery is operated by and for the faculty and students of the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Greenville Technical College. The gallery is located at 300 River Street, Suite 202, along the scenic Reedy River at Art Crossing in downtown Greenville. Look for the red umbrella.

For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call the gallery at 864/271-0679 or visit (http://www.gvltec.edu/riverworks/).

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