The Riverside Galleries at Garrison Art Center in Garrison, New York, announces Two Exhibition Openings, August 11 - September 9, 2018 with a public reception for the artists on Saturday, August 11 from 5 -7pm.
The artists include Melinda Stickney-Gibson and Victoria Thorson.
Melinda Stickney-Gibson, Smooch, 60 x 80 inches
Melinda Stickney-Gibson's paintings and painted “tapestries” involve a diaristic, personal and often graphic approach. Her paintings and sculptural pieces literally incorporate tiny bits of writing from her own journals, favorite fragments of writing by others and universal words such as “yes," “maybe," “no?," “her,” “ummm….,” etc. This aspect of the work is absolutely in relationship to her longtime love of the physical act of painting and her visceral love of the paint itself.
One work that will be featured in the exhibition is LOSING LARSEN C, a painting that is a personal commentary on a gigantic ancient ice cap, named Larsen C, which is rapidly losing mass.
Stickney-Gibson has been living and working as an artist in New York for over 25 years. In addition to painting, she creates sculptural work incorporating steel, glass, concrete and wire often resting on steel wall-mounted ledges or installed on the floor itself.
Melinda Stickney-Gibson, Losing Larsen C
Victoria Thorson’s sculptures tread a line between recognizable form and pure abstraction. She has been seduced by basswood. Its softness of touch when smooth, evokes the human body. Starting with lumber or recycled wood, Thorson sees potential shapes and feels her way along the cracks, knots and grain, following the lines of energy. She carves and refines to create slits of light between masses and discovers abstract forms to express life’s silences and vibrations.
Her work is often anchored by a re-purposed metal industrial find that is the right weight, proportion and aesthetic to be part of the piece, not a separate base. Most pieces can rotate 360 degrees or swing out to recompose, while the initial core and plumb line stay intact. This exhibition will also feature several ceramics Thorson created in the 90s working with sculptor Peter Gourfain, who taught her to sharpen a wood tool and cut clear planes when the clay was right to the touch. Gallery visitors will see the evolution as Thorson brought her fluid form-language from clay to wood.
Victoria Thorson, 05 Red Surge
Victoria Thorson, 08 Bosnia Wood 1
Two Exhibition Openings:
Some Stories, Melinda Stickney-Gibson and BassWood Bodies, Victoria Thorson
August 11 – September 9, 2018
Public reception for the artists: Saturday, August 11, 5-7pm
The Riverside Galleries at Garrison Art Center
23 Garrison’s Landing
Garrison, NY 10524
845-424-3960
www.garrisonartcenter.org