May 2013

City of Raleigh, NC, Features Works by Jessica Dupuis & Julie Anne Greenberg

The City of Raleigh, NC, and the City of Raleigh Arts Commission will present Metamorphoses, featuring ceramic sculpture by Jessica Dupuis and mixed media prints by Julie Anne Greenberg, on view in the Miriam Preston Block Gallery, in the Raleigh Municipal Building, from May 1 through June 21, 2013. A reception will be held on May 1, from 5-7pm.

The artists of Metamorphoses employ transformative artistic techniques to explore the shifting nature and meaning of objects, memories, and natural forces as they relate to human experience. Jessica Dupuis alters mundane but personally meaningful childhood objects into stunning ceramic sculptures through the application of thousands of shards of slip-coated, kiln-fired paper. Julie Anne Greenberg unearths the alchemical power of water in the subtly reflective and texturally complex surfaces of her mixed-media prints.

In her new series of works, Dupuis creates elaborate sculptures by coating paper in colored clay slip, firing it, then breaking it into small pieces that she adheres to the surface of dismantled pieces of furniture. She is interested in stripping away function as a means of exploring the essence of things, but inserts herself into each piece by utilizing furniture from her childhood. While these objects contain personal significance for the artist, her primary concern is the metamorphic act of changing a discarded item into an object of beauty.

Julie Anne Greenberg has long been captivated by the transformative power of water and its parallels to human experience. This fascination, informed by time spent on the Mississippi Delta, results in a body of work that captures the nuanced, ephemeral beauty of this most basic substance and forms the core of her artistic subject. Greenberg’s process is an attempt to mimic the natural processes that create the environments she studies. She employs experimental techniques to recreate the effect of water on her subjects. From falling rain to thawing ice, this textural application imbues her initial, often abstracted subject with a hyper-realistic effect that pushes beyond representation.

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the gallery at 919/996-3610 or visit (www.raleigh-nc.org/arts).

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