June Issue 2001
Gallery WDO in Charlotte, NC, Hosts Exhibition Focused on the Human Figure
Gallery WDO in Charlotte, NC, will be hosting the exhibit Concerning The Human Figure which features Christie Brown (Clay), Kurt Perschke (Clay/Glass/Metal), Ken Carter (Glass), Hoss Haley (Metal) and Susie Ganch (Jewelry). The exhibit will be on view through June 23.
English artist, Christie Brown will be showing ceramic figures and Katy Bevan says of her work, "...their expressions are ancient, world-weary, they gaze ahead, unseeing through small black slits that suggest an intensely vulnerable, yet unreachable inner space. As with Brown's current work, there bodies are composed of molded sections and the joins emphasized with black or red, create a disquieting analogy with both armor and wounded fresh, and with limbs either broken or missing, they seem like survivors of physical or psychological catastrophe."
"The first thought when looking at Christie Brown's figures is of the automation of C3PO in Star Wars. This is not as inappropriate as would first appear. Christie Brown's work concerns profound themes such as power and control. The power of creation, control over life and death - giving intelligence and attitude to an otherwise inanimate shell. Her ideas are informed by the ritual uses of ceramic as grave sculpture, the Chinese Terracotta Army (third century BC) and archaic Egyptian Shabti or grave helpers and her understanding of the figure through constant life drawing."
Susie Ganch is an Artist in Residence at Penland School of Art in Penland, NC, and her work is in jewelry. Of her work she says, "My Thinking Caps are self reflective pieces meant to assist and protect my thoughts. Each is born out of a different thought. I try to reinvent the way we see jewelry and challenge our expectations of how it looks and feels when we wear it. In our culture, jewelry is more often than not an unobtrusive object we incorporate into our daily dress: something we can forget about. Yet jewelry can alter a body, physically making the wearer reliant on it in order to function. Jewelry is also used to protect, enhance, or further beautify the person who wears it. I like the idea of being conscious of something on our bodies which is meant to emphasize a certain part of us or just to draw attention and celebrate who we are."
Mixed media sculptures by Kurt Perschke are both disturbing and chilling. He takes medical science as a jumping off point. Julia Stevenson says of Perschke's work, "One of the most intriguing qualities of Perschke's sculptures is that the signature of the individual has been ripped away. This seems to speak of the uncertainty of time, of the ultimate human blindness: what lies ahead forms continually, whereas the records of the past, are at best imperfect fragments. ...fragments of the human figure, made of clay- torsos, arms and legs, are mounted on angular metal stands, like specimens in a bizarre archaeological museum."
Hoss Haley is a former artist-in-residence in metals at the Penland School. His work is in the permanent collection of the Mint Museum of Craft + Design.
Ken Carder is an important second-generation NC glass artist. The new works shown are cubistic/ prismatic variations on the human head.
For further information check our NC Commercial Gallery listings or call the gallery at 704/333-9123.
Mailing Address: Carolina Arts, P.O. Drawer
427, Bonneau, SC 29431
Telephone, Answering Machine and FAX: 843/825-3408
E-Mail: carolinart@aol.com
Subscriptions are available for $18 a year.
Carolina Arts
is published monthly by Shoestring
Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc.
Copyright© 2001 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston
Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts
from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts
Online, Copyright© 2001 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved
by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use
without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina
Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.