Jewett Gallery Opening October 14th 4 – 6pm October 9, 2012

On View

The Jewett Gallery of Art

Wellesley College

Ecstasy and Commonsense: Samantha Fields

Visual Texts: Curated by Boston Artist, Ben Sloat

Wire Sculptures, Playing Grown Up: Clyde Bango

When: October 7 – October 26 (opening reception Sunday October 14, 4-6pm.)

 Ecstasy and Commonsense Highlights: 

Focusing on color, shape, line and form, Samantha Fields’ work embraces materials and processes that engage a rich and transgressive history. Fields’ explores a visual language that has been associated with the feminine, the infantile and primitive, or has been relegated to be superficial and excessive, and therefore unworthy of serious consideration. Field states: “We no longer make; we buy. Crocheting, embroidery, and weaving leave the trace of the hand and the understanding of labor, time, and are imbued with our everyday experience. Craft holds within it the art/life dichotomy. It embodies both by its mere existence.” Fields’ exploration begins with the afghan, which carries with it a multiplicity of meaning, hybrids of form, and social constructs. These hybrids are viewed with their excess of ornament, ruffle upon ruffle, beads and sequins, as an elevation of what has been traditionally considered a de- evolution of a sophisticated western society.

Visual Text Highlights:

Considering the long and reflexive relationship between photography and text, works from this exhibition explore a range of its creative potential.  A further aspect to this show is a series of handmade artist books and prints that further the inquisition and materiality concerning image and text. Local photographers such as Karl Baden, Jane Tuckerman, Matthew Gamber, Jim Dow, Douglas Weathersby, Bruce Myren and others use text in manners that range from diaristic and creative writing to photographs of signage and commercial lettering. In one series, the poet Katie Peterson writes spontaneous poems over photographs of Alaska made by Youngsuk Suh on a trip they took together. In another series, Geoff Hargadon photographs the range of public locations he has installed his creative signage works, “Cash For Your Warhol.”

Wire Sculptures, playing grown up:

Clyde Bango’s intricately woven wire frames can be loosely described as line drawing in free space, but they represent much more. The hand-made sculptures evolved from the artist’s childhood experiences of crafting toy cars out of recycled wire in Harare, Zimbabwe. Bango’s artwork represent adamant resilience to growing up yet accepts the responsibilities and challenges that inevitably come with being grown up. The themes are very personal and often political. Subjects are derived from memories, art history and current affairs, and they showcase a range of innovative techniques that address surface modeling, abstract geometry and rendering of micro detail with steel wire.  When the final product emerges, it is stripped of all the coldness of steel but luscious with life, spacious in volume, and in some cases captured in motion. Bango is a young artist seeking to make his mark as a contemporary African artist.

Samantha Fields

Visual Text

Clyde Bango