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February Issue
2010
Vista Studios
in Columbia, SC, Features Works by Susan Lenz
Vista Studios in Columbia, SC, will present two installations, Blues Chapel and Last Words, created by fiber artist Susan Lenz, on view in Gallery 80808, from Feb. 4 - 16, 2010.
Blues Chapel is an installation honoring the great women of the early Blues world. Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday and Alberta Hunter are among the twenty-four singers depicted saint-like above an altar and before mahogany church pews. Music will fill the gallery. The installation has just returned to Columbia after two months in the Great Denton Arts Council's Gough Gallery, in Denton, TX, where it received extensive media coverage in the arts-oriented community.
The installation is the artist's tribute to the hard-singing, hard-living women. "Early female blues singers lived in a male dominated society, in a segregated country, and worked in an industry that took advantage of their lack of education and opportunity," Lenz said. "Physical abuse, drug and alcohol dependence, and poverty plagued most. They struggled, made sacrifices, and sang of their woes. They helped change the world for today's young, black, female vocalists."
If Blues Chapel is considered the "church", then Last Words is its churchyard where the departed rest. Last Words, based on gravestone rubbings on fabric and collected epitaphs, explores the concepts of remembrance and mortality. This brand-new body of work is made up of over 30 grave rubbing art quilts, 25 photo transfers stitched with found objects (Angels in Mourning Series), and a focal point of sheer chiffon banners embroidered with hundreds of collected epitaphs.
"The work is meant
to suggest the serenity of a cemetery, the connection with the
past, and the frailty of life," Lenz said. "Personal
and universal issues of mortality are evident in the selection
of words from the past that address the future."
Hours for this exhibit are Thur.-Sat., 11am-midnight; M.-W., 11am-6pm;
& Sun., noon-6pm.
For further info
check our SC Commercial Gallery listings, call the gallery at
803/252-6134 or visit (www.gallery80808vistastudios.com).
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