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January Issue 2007
Nina Liu and Friends in Charleston, SC, Offers Works by Jocelyn Chateauvert and Nina Liu
Nina Liu and Friends gallery in Charleston, SC, concludes its twentieth anniversary year with a two person exhibition featuring the work of Jocelyn Chateauvert and gallery owner Nina Liu. Entitled From the Ground Up, the exhibition will be on view through Jan. 31, 2007.
Saying that "our materials are different, but our works have an affinity for one another," Liu notes that both artists use familiar materials that allow them to play with elemental themes. Chateauvert works with paper. Liu forms vessels and other objects with various types of clay. Even with these diverse media, the pieces in the exhibition complement one another.
Chateauvert has created several light boxes for the exhibition. Each light box glows with subtle colors and features varied textures that owe their complexity to the process that Chateauvert uses in making her paper. She pounds abaca fibers for varying lengths of time to develop the different colors and thicknesses of the paper. Once the initial process is complete, Chateauvert works with it to develop objects that are deceptively simple, at first viewing, and which are a perfect foil for Liu's ceramics.
With contrasting textures, sometimes complex patterns, and combinations of rich colors, Liu's ceramics resemble artifacts from an ancient past. Liu often works with more than one clay body in a given object, sometimes weaving strips of both porcelain and stoneware to create patterns that recur from piece to piece. In some instances Liu fires the pieces with bits of broken glass that fuse with her glazes in controlled "accidents." Some of the works that Liu has included in the exhibition are assemblages that she creates from multiple units of similar shape and color.
The exhibition changes from week to week and allows the viewer to see a large body of Liu's work. It also is a good way to see Chateauvert's work prior to the March opening of the Renwick Craft Invitational, a biennial exhibition at the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC, that will feature the work of Chateauvert and three other craft artists of national repute.
For more information check our SC Commercial Gallery listings or call the gallery at 843/722-2724.
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