Eric Eley, Coincident Disruption
Marilyn Jolly, Melba Northum, Susan Sitzes,Transience: Imperfect, Impermanent, Incomplete
Walter Nelson, Graffiti on Aspen Trees – Nature vs. Man
Exhibitions will be on view through February 18, 2012.
Large Gallery
Eric Eley
Coincident Disruption
Coincident Disruption, a large scale installation by Dallas based artist Eric Eley, employs historical camouflage strategies and impromptu construction techniques to create an aerial landscape. The installation is an investigation of concealment and explores hiding as an act of avoidance rather than ambiguous visibility. A network of patterned skeletal structures will be suspended from the ceiling of the Large Gallery, supporting an expanse of hand-made twine and fabric nets. Its improvisational geometric architecture is a means to obscure what happens in the space beyond, rather than below, the surface. Coincident Disruption explores visual and architectural camouflage as an act of faith, more psychological than physical, in its protection.
Eric Eley received a BFA from Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, and has a MFA from the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. In the time between his degrees, Eric spent two years as an artist-in-residence at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana where he received the Taunt Fellowship.
Eley’s work is represented by Platform Gallery, Seattle. His most recent solo installation, In theater, was shown at Suyama Space in Seattle. He also mounted solo exhibitions at Art Agents Gallery in Hamburg, Germany, Gallery4Culture and the Hedreen Gallery at the Lee Center for the Arts, both in Seattle. Eley’s work has been included in group shows in the Kunsthaus Hamburg, Outdoor Sculpture Projects at Volta03 in Basel, Switzerland, and Open Space at Art Cologne in Cologne, Germany. He has installed a publicly commissioned work at Harborview Medical Center, in Seattle, and recently installed his first permanent outdoor sculpture at the corporate headquarters of Amazon.com.
Square Gallery
Marilyn Jolly, Melba Northum, Susan Sitzes
Transience: Imperfect, Impermanent, Incomplete
Transience: Imperfect, Impermanent, Incomplete, an exhibition of work by Marilyn Jolly, Melba Northum and Susan Sitzes, exemplifies each artist’s close affinity for found and collected materials that reflect a sense of time. The mixed media of two-dimensional and sculptural works directly reflects the artists’ alignment with the Japanese worldview and aesthetic of Wabi-sabi. Wabi-sabi is a complicated sensibility that is often centered on the acceptance of transience and appreciation of beauty that is imperfect, impermanent or incomplete.
The materials employed in Transience: Imperfect, Impermanent, Incomplete range from discovered objects in nature to industrial castoffs and the general detritus of daily living. Whether using the materials as found or more intentionally manipulated, there is a poetic editing and re-arranging, with the goal of getting to the true essence of the object or thought.
About the Artists
Marilyn Jolly, Melba Northum and Susan Sitzes have gained familiarity with and responded to each other’s work for several years as friends and colleagues. They share a strong design aesthetic and responsiveness to the materiality of objects that often drives their work.
Marilyn Jolly lives in Dallas, Texas. She earned her MFA in Painting at the University of Oklahoma in 1983. Her work has been exhibited in numerous regional, national and international exhibitions including the Centro Cultural Paraguayo-Americano, Asuncion, Paraguay in 2004 and 2005 and the Santa Reparata International School of Art, Florence, Italy in 2007 and 2004. Jolly has shown work in the Texas/Oklahoma region for the past 25 years including one-person exhibitions at the Galveston Arts Center, Galveston, Texas, The Leslie Powell Gallery in Lawton, Oklahoma and Conduit Gallery in Dallas, Texas. Jolly is currently an Associate Professor of Painting at the University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas.
Melba Northum is a mixed-media artist living in Arlington, Texas. She is currently an Instructor of Art at Tarrant County College and previously taught ceramics at Texas Christian University, Ft. Worth, Texas and as an Assistant Professor in the foundation program at the University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas. She has an MFA in ceramics and drawing from the UNT College of Visual Arts and Design and a BFA in the same from the TTU School of Art, Lubbock. Northum has an extensive national, international, and regional exhibition record and has work in the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC.
Susan Sitzes is a metalsmith, sculptor, educator and interior designer living and working in the DFW area. Sitzes has an MFA in Metalsmithing and Jewelry Design from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas and a BFA in Interior Design from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. Sitzes has taught as Assistant Professor of Metalsmithing and Jewelry Design at The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas. She has exhibited her sculptures regionally and nationally. Sitzes has worked on a wide range of interior projects and is currently designing and making limited-edition jewelry and small-to-medium scale sculptures.
New Works Space
Walter Nelson
Graffiti on Aspen Trees – Nature vs. Man
Graffiti on Aspen Trees – Nature vs. Man, an exhibition of photographs by Walter Nelson, investigates man’s presence and effect on nature. The act of scaring on aspen trees, inflicted by nature or man, begins with the slightest scratch. The image remaining on the bark of an Aspen tree is called an Arboglyph. Arboglyphs are commonly found in the Pacific Northwest and Western United States and were first produced by Basque sheepherders in the 1800’s. During the life cycle of an Aspen tree, any scaring brings about a mutational healing process that continues until the tree beings to deteriorate and die, similar to the human body. The intent of Graffiti on Aspen Trees – Nature vs. Man is to consider the pain that man projects from the self onto the natural environment. These photographs expose the beautiful qualities in healing rituals that both humans and nature endure.
Walter Nelson is a photographer, painter and sculptor living and working in Abiquiu, New Mexico. Nelson has a BS in Mammalogy and Geology from Midwestern University in Wichita Falls, Texas and studied Oceanography at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. Nelson employs his scientific knowledge and observes environmental trends and translates them into visual art forms. Nelson has exhibited extensively in New Mexico and Texas including the Greaswood Gallery in Marfa, Texas, Galleria Arriba in Abiquiu, New Mexico and Afterimage Gallery in Dallas, Texas. Nelson has work in many private and public collections including the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, The Santa Fe Museum of Fine Art and the Bank of America Corporation.