Curations

The Weekly Curation: The Places Art Can Take Us

Exploring ‘Place’ as personal and every place all at once
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Written by Melanie Reese
Jul 21st, 2020   •   8 minute read
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The Weekly Curation: The Places Art Can Take Us

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The idea of place can be both ephemeral and concrete. We can each describe our childhood homes with specific adjectives –– small, messy, roomy –– as well as words that project emotion and intangible feelings. Cozy, chaotic, sterile, loving. In the ongoing pandemic, what does space mean to us? Does it mean privacy? The line between solitude and shared spaces has never been so drastic. Our homes mean more than a few rooms and a roof over our heads. They represent spaces we travel within without masks or general precaution. Home and space is more emotional than it has ever been. And, as we think of old houses sold to new owners, our elementary school playgrounds, our grandparents' house, some places only exist in memory.

This week’s curated artworks explore these complexities around the idea of place. We illustrate how ‘place’ can be specific or universal, narrative or abstract. This week, artist and curator Mel Reese brings together a collection of Art in Res pieces which explore the idea of place. Within each of these works, we explore the artist’s use of space, environment, memory, and specific sense of place.

And, as always, summer is the perfect time to hit the refresh button. Let’s refresh each of our own homes with a window into a whole new world.

Scroll through the post to see Mel’s placement of each piece, as well as how the selected works come together in a thoughtful, coalescent collection. Make sure to also catch Mel’s helpful educational tips on curating your own collection!

Now let’s settle in place and scroll onward –– happy browsing!

Atmosphere

Mountain Slope install shot
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14 x 11" •  oil on panel

The work of Carrie-Ann Bracco is always steeped in place. Each brushstroke is thick, moody, and atmospheric. We understand this piece as both a specific place, a certain mountain top, and also a universal mountain feel, recognizable to any viewer. We get the sense that Carrie-Ann may have painted the scene from memory, a distant snow capped peak buried in her mind’s eye, evoking what was experienced in this place rather than a portrait of the place itself. Together, Bracco brings us on a journey to, through, and beyond those misty mountains.

Carrie-Ann Bracco was born on Long Island, NY. Carrie's art has mostly focused on remote and endangered landscapes. She has traveled to unique places to inspire her artwork, including the Amazon jungle of Southern Peru, a sailing expedition (The Arctic Circle) off the coast of Svalbard (Norway), the glaciers of Patagonia and the Andes in Peru. The paintings from these experiences attempt to convey the ethereal quality of these mythic and fragile landscapes. They also illustrate our explorations into the unknown and our tenuous co-existence with the natural environment.

Perspective

Constructed Space  install shot
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10 x 3" •  Collage and charcoal on paper

As we look at the bio and travels of artist Samantha Morris we know physical space is a core in all her works. In this small intimate piece, we find a photo of a beach coastline. As it is a real photo, it is clearly specific to place––one perhaps meaningful to the artist––yet no landmark indicates exactly where it might be to us as viewers. With that, it is now all beaches together. What is most intriguing to me about the piece is the perspective we are given as a viewer. Morris cuts the photograph, distorting it in a way, making us feel as though we are seeing the scene through a home window, or a long tunnel, or even in a dark movie theater, as we sit alone in our own black void. It’s a feeling of peeking in or eavesdropping. We are given this context through the minimal, yet strategic cuts of the photographic plain within the rectangle composition –– Morris gives us just enough context so our minds infer the perspective lines of the ceiling, floor, and walls.

Samantha Morris was born in 1995 and grew up in Madison, Connecticut; she now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. In her artwork, she focuses on the idea of an individual traveling through a space; exploring place through architecture and landscape, abstracted through line, shadow pattern, contrast, and negative space. She is interested in the dynamics of what can and can’t be seen.

Structural Lines

Merging Paths install shot
24 x 30" •  Acrylic on Canvas

The structural pieces of artist Ilana Greenberg are each architectural, both sturdy and bold. The work reminds us of pipes interconnected or the walls of a structure, twisting and turning structural lines. As a viewer are we looking on on a space or perhaps from above or at a blueprint drawing of an idea? Are we outside looking in?

Ilana Greenberg is a painter, illustrator and graphic designer working in her beloved hometown of Brooklyn. Her abstract paintings are inspired by the mid-century modern masters, as well as the fast-paced and ever-changing city she calls home. Ilana finds painting to be the best form of meditation and she always strives for a little imperfection in her work.

Memories

Dobongsan install shot
50 x 50" •  Oil on Canvas mounted on wood

Like a lush, mountainous jungle or the veins of a wet forest leaf, Dobongsan by Jeffrey Morabito is definitely organic. The loose, yet disciplined line-work of the piece evokes masterworks of Japanese woodblock printmakers Hokusai and Hiroshige––most specifically, Hokusai’s most famous works within his 36 views of Mount Fuji series. While the piece is lush, rich green, it is not overwhelming. We can breathe deep breaths of fresh air as we travel through the work. The imagery evokes our memories of walks along natural valleys, hiking up turrets and peaks of mountains. As we view the piece, we travel to old and new places with each breath we take.

Born in Bronxville, half Hong Kong-ese and half Italian, Jeffrey Morabito spent his early years traveling between New York and Hong Kong. Much of Morabito’s work is playing with the legibility of objects in painting. Recognizable figures are put in unrecognizable picture planes, or sometimes the reverse. The associations made by the viewer determine the legibility of the object.

Fantasy

Pale Fuchsia Mare install shot
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30 x 30" •  Oil on Canvas

The mountains of Amelia Carley are very different, neither green nor organic. It’s an alien world, a fantasy realm that we long to escape. Could this be Candyland or Middle Earth or some distant planet in the Star Wars galaxy? We instinctively understand these bright, colorful mountains and lush valleys are fantasmic, something made by the imagination for our escape.

Amelia Carley is an artist making work concerning the interpretation of memories within landscape and fictitious sites. Born and raised in Colorado, Carley received a BFA from University of Colorado at Boulder and an MFA at the Ernest G Welch School of Art and Design at Georgia State University.

Environment

Time and it’s influence  install shot
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40 x 30" •  Acrylic on canvas

In contrast to the smooth purples of Carley’s work, Ruiz’s piece is all heat. Is this a garden of fresh flowers or a fall farm landscape? Each line is expressive and messy, crafting new forms for the eye to catch. Time and space are lost within the colorful field, though it simultaneously feels so organic. We are swaddled by the bright, rich colors, enveloped in the environment of the piece.

Urban Views

Because of the title of this particular piece, we know this is a specific landscape, a portrait of Manhattan from Brooklyn. This area is familiar and iconic to every NYC resident, knowing it before even seeing the title. But, if we forget NYC for a moment, we can read the piece as any portrayal of urban landscapes, the apex of industrialism. Within this, we could see commentary on any major city shaped by the boom of industrialization, almost timeless in its placement––the factory, with its active steam towers, is a powerful focal point, pointing the viewer to the painting's purpose.

Travel

Tea Garden (Turkey) install shot
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8 x 8" •  Acrylic, paper, felt, paper, vellum, pencil, pastel, cotton ...

At first glance, this stunning little beauty is a jumble of color, pattern, and oh so yummy textures –– we are entranced! As we spend time looking at the piece, deliciously taking it in, the lines and forms begin to organize and we uncover overlapping figures. Women with their handbags, draped in warm colors, gather together, chatting through their familiar routine. From the title, Tea Garden (Turkey) we understand these to be women in headscarves gathered together for their regular tea and we are transported there with them –– embraced in the fabrics and culture of a place across the seas.

Born in 1984, Linden spent her youth in the urban Sonoran desert of Phoenix, Arizona before moving to Southern California to obtain her BA in Studio Art. She’s since lived and worked across Europe, Asia, and Oceania. Her work centers around themes of memory architecture - its process of alterations, renewals, and inaccuracies. Fully enamored by mixed media, she uses a variety of materials to create, including paper, found fragments, transparencies, sewing thread, paint, and pastels.

Bringing it Together

On curating the collection:

Let’s learn how and why I brought these pieces together –– I want to walk you through what I’ve considered. Whether you’re an experienced collector or totally new to the art world, it’s always fun to thoughtfully discuss what makes a great collection.

This week, inspired by the places art can take us I have brought together a collection of artworks that transport us to specific places, evoke memories of places we’ve been, or inspire us to go.

Composition:

For many of this week’s pieces composition is a key part of understanding our position as the viewer. From Ilana Greenberg’s painting we see a piece of a whole. With its scale and never ending lines, the piece extends seemingly beyond its own canvas. In contrast, Bracco’s painting is small and intimate, yet still depicting a vast subject, covered in heavy snow. As the viewer we are placed within each composition, feeling the expanse of what we are taking in, emphasized by the fact that Bracco has covered nearly ⅔ of the painting in crisp, delicious white snow.

Size and scale:

As you all well know, I love combining various sizes and scales within my curations. Not only does this create an interesting variety when viewed, but it forces each viewer to move around the artworks. Some are taken in up close, some require the viewer to step back. Each piece has its own demands. For Morabito’s work, you must back up, considering it in its entirety, then examining the details as you move forward. Some pieces are so small, like Eller’s work, that you must seemingly tiptoe to the canvas to uncover what this really is. Jumbled abstractions become shapes, whispering to each viewer.

Materials:

This week I want to highlight Samantha Morris’s unique use of photo collage and Linden Eller’s multimedia painting. Through a combination of photo and charcoal, two very different materials, Morris strategically juxtaposes the idea of specific place and also abstract no-place. The photo we read and understand as being a specific place, a snapshot. The charcoal we read as a void, a solid black sheet of emptiness. Juxtaposing these two materials emphasizes the role of the other and brings the overall message together. Similarly, Linden Eller turns to a variety of materials to create varied depths, forms, and environments. Sewing, glueing, and painting are all combined to physically build the composition, creating varied textures and patterns that are used to guide us through her unique composition and transport us into Eller’s world.

With these new viewing tools in hand, happy collecting!

Curated by Mel Reese
Zhuzh by Emily Berge
Virtual installations courtesy of ArtPlacer

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