Jennifer Poon | Untitled (detail) | Watercolor and gouache on paper | 41 x 53.5 in. | 2011

Jennifer Poon’s lyrical and confident paint conveys the fragile nature of and the sensitive balance between our physical and spiritual selves. Conducted with a delicate hand, her dark, heavy subject matter becomes tractable enough for us to approach it, reflect on it, and digest its message. Poon’s solo exhibition “Strange Blooms” creates a provocative dialogue by juxtaposing her meticulous watercolors with her obsessively crafted fabric sculptures. Mining the relatable from both human and animal subjects, Poon’s studio practice is at once intellectual and emotional; she maximizes the feminine nature of her media while allowing it to express compelling and bleak themes. The Artist’s cut and sewn paper, gouache, and watercolor along with her densely stitched, stained, and sculpted fabrics entice the viewer’s enamored gaze.

Jennifer Poon | Mirror in a Terrarium | Watercolor and gouache on paper | 44 x 30 in. | 2011

Poon draws inspiration from the quotidian and extrapolates to the romantic, allowing the hidden layers of her work to quietly whisper their spatial and narrative depth. Like Dumas and Schiele before her, she builds her work around a fascination with the human form but takes into consideration the body as a physical anchor for emotions. Her tense and poetic technique permits the viewer to explore paradox within each piece: the elegant and the grotesque, the fragile and the jarring, the painstaking and the effortless. As with any modern era figurative painter who explores violence, ambiguity and irony, there is a trajectory of ideas descended from Goya, but Poon is adept at settling a contemporary effect on the human condition. The Artist’s intentionally undefined relationships create a cocktail of uncertainty, angst, and curiosity, establishing her place among art’s emotional provocateurs. This is the Artist’s third solo exhibition at the Gallery.

On View: January 5 – February 11, 2012

Opening Reception with the Artist: Thursday | January 5 | 6 – 8 pm

Jennifer Poon | Wild Dogs: Lying Dog (detail) | Cotton muslin, hand dyed silk, thread, batting, felted wool, silk waste, aluminum wire, wood, graphite, beeswax | 16 x 23 x 22 in. | 2011

Andrew Erdos | The Texture of a Ghost | Hand blown mirrorized glass, video, acrylic mirror | 8′ 4″ x 5′ x 4′ 6″ | 2011

Claire Oliver Gallery is proud to announce that we were selected as the “best booth in Art Miami” by both The Huffington Post and Whitehot Magazine.

The Huffington Post said:

“Claire Oliver was the best booth in Art Miami featuring an Andrew Erdos walk in booth installation and Andy Denzler’s dramatic out of focus figurative works.”

Other rave review include the Miami Herald:

“Moby and Will Smith were both seen separately at Art Miami. Smith, who knew, is an art fan was seen Thursday night at the Claire Oliver Gallery at Art Miami, where he was tooling around with fair director, Nick Korniloff.”

As well as Glass Quarterly:

“Art from glass is increasingly present at Art Miami  (December 1st-4th) with Schantz Galleries, Heller Gallery, and Barry Friedman among those 2011 exhibitors spotlighting silica sculpture. But it was New York-based Claire Oliver Gallery that may have generated the most attention for the material with her art and video installation of the work of up-and-coming glassblower Andrew Erdos, who brandishes a 2007 BFA in glass from Alfred.”

The queue for Andrew Erdos' "The Texture of a Ghost"

With over 7,000 Miami Art Week attendees – including celebrities, important collectors, and curators from seven major museums – stepping in to Andrew Erdos’s transformative room installation “The Texture of a Ghost,” Claire Oliver Gallery has once again demonstrated its mission of presenting artwork that mixes traditional disciplines like painting, drawing, and sculpture with new media, methodology, and mindset.

Claire Oliver Gallery Art Miami booth 2011

Showcasing the diverse works of Norbert Brunner, Andy Denzler, Andrew Erdos, Herb Jackson, and Stephanie Lempert, the Gallery expressed its dedication to balancing conceptual concern with a highly visual approach focused on physical process, commitment to craft, and intensity of detail. The crowds of art enthusiasts responded powerfully to our special exhibition “Reflections,” and we received amazing reactions from collectors, museums, and institutions. New public commissions were secured by the Gallery for its artists at the fair, so stay tuned for upcoming announcements about these exciting projects.

Claire Oliver Gallery Art Miami booth 2011

The artist Andrew Erdos standing in his installation "The Texture of a Ghost"

You Are Formidable | Norbert Brunner | Acrylic Glass, acrylic Mirror, Swarovski Crystals, MDF, LED lights | 51 x 26 x 4 in. | 2011

Eighty feet in length and rising as high as twelve feet in the air, Sleeth’s expressway is composed of 33 separate units, each a unique work of art, complete with electronic road signs, diminutive video screens, and LED billboards. This elevated thoroughfare snakes through the gallery, visually referencing ancient Roman aqueducts, Route 66, and Chelsea’s own elevated High Line. The concrete foundation places the work in an uncanny realism; the freeway is simultaneously spectacular and imposing while invoking the humdrum lifestyle. Sleeth’s miniature monument to contemporary society’s “wrong turn” questions where we went astray; we hope to answer our complex questions with absurd metaphors, platitudes, and narratives. The time is now; history will judge us: The Rise and Fall of Western Civilization.

Disillusioned with the downward spiral of postmodernism, Sleeth seeks to engage with the world through the language of popular culture, advertising, fashion, and design. Concerned with the social, political, and cultural landscape as well as those who inhabit it, the Artist’s singular vision is one of dynamic design, uncanny juxtapositions, and telling but subtle detail. Sleeth’s aesthetic is conceptually driven across a range of media, including photography, video, sculpture, print making, and public installation. His work can best be understood as new media seen through the prism of photography, with a unifying aesthetic that explores where photography is going. The Nielsen Reports state that in the US, the average person is exposed to between 500 and 1,600 advertising messages per day. As we are only awake an average of 1000 minutes a day, this statistic underlines the import of mass media (and advertising as a subset) in our modern, workaday lives. It is with an eye to social commentary, at a time when mass media is omnipresent in our consciousness, that the Artist’s unique and meticulous studio practice seduces our undisciplined attention span.

Sleeth’s work has been exhibited throughout Australia, Asia, Europe, and the United States in more than 35 solo exhibitions and is featured in over 25 public collections, including the National Gallery of Victoria, the State Libraries of the NSW and Victoria, Monash Gallery of Art, National Portrait Gallery, and Brandts Museet, Denmark. As testament to his innovative techniques, he was recently named one of the top “30 Under 30” influential fine artists by PDN Magazine New York. Sleeth is exclusively represented by Claire Oliver Gallery, and The Rise and Fall of Western Civilization (And Other Obvious Metaphors) is his second solo show at the Gallery.

On view: December 1 – 31, 2011

Opening reception with the Artist: Thursday | December 8 | 6 – 8 pm

Judith was selected for this esteemed position, and gave her own lecture “Surviving Your Creativity: On Inspiration, Perspiration, Practice, Audience, and Beliefs” to a rapt audience. The full video of this talk can be seen here. As a preview, she supplied the following statement:

Creativity is mysterious, miraculous and utterly crucial to an artists’ practice. How does one become inspired? How does one choose the one idea to pursue amongst many ideas? How does inspiration get processed and/or developed into tangible, material substance and what happens to it along the way? Are there techniques to improve oneself creatively? This lecture covers the topics of: inspiration, perspiration (developing ideas into pieces), practice (work habits, motivation), audience and beliefs, with a practical focus on what is most non-verbal and ephemeral.

Judith Schaechter has lived and worked in Philadelphia since graduating in 1983 with a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design Glass Program. She has exhibited widely, including in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. She is the recipient of many grants, including the Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in Crafts , The Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, The Joan Mitchell Award, two Pennsylvania Council on the Arts awards, The Pew Fellowship in the Arts and a Leeway Foundation grant. Her work is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Corning Museum of Glass, The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution and numerous other collections. Judith has taught at The Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle, The Penland School of Crafts, Toyama Institute of Glass (Toyama, Japan), Rhode Island School of Design, The Pennsylvania Academy, the New York Academy of Art and at The University of the ArtsJudith’s work was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial and she is a 2008 USA Artists Rockefeller Fellow.

You Are Here | Stained Glass Lightbox | 36.5 x 25 x 6 in

With the bar set very high for this year’s edition of Art Miami, Claire Oliver Gallery has curated a special exhibition of works by artists Andy Denzler, Norbert Brunner, Herb Jackson, Stephanie Lempert and Andrew Erdos entitled “Reflection.”

Reflection [ri-flek-shuhn] noun:

1. The act of reflecting or the state of being reflected.

2. A fixing of the thoughts on something; careful consideration.

3. A thought occurring in consideration or meditation.

To help combat the pastry shop mentality of many art fair participants, Claire Oliver has curated her stand at Art Miami 2011 as an extension of the gallery. Each artist featured at this year’s exhibition has been selected for his or her ability to transport the viewer to a state of literal and/or figurative reflection. In the works of Andrew Erdos and Norbert Brunner, the concept of Reflection has taken literal form by forcing the viewer’s image squarely into the center of the work itself, thus insisting we become an interactive part of the installation. At the other end of the continuum is the figurative use of the term found in works of art by Andy Denzler and Herb Jackson. Mr. Denzler’s deep, gestural strokes read as fissures running across a façade, barely revealing the hidden depths of these thickly painted, contemplative works.  Herb Jackson creates multi-layered paintings in an intuitive state, working for hours at a time without a verbal thought, conferring a meditative nature to the completed work. In between these two extremes are photographic works of art by Stephanie Lempert. In her series “Language of Space” the Artist layers the surface of her works with conversations of those who have entered her camera’s lens, reflecting the true history of a location by those who have occupied it.

Stephanie Lempert | York (detail) | C-print | 40 x 50 inches

Claire Oliver Gallery has an impressive history of museum collaborations and exhibitions around the world, the most recent being Gallery Artist Judith Schaechter’s exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC. This year alone, Claire Oliver Gallery has collaborated with The Museum of Art and Design, The Ringling Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, FL, The Tampa Museum of Art, The Chazen Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, Tallahassee, The Corning Museum of Glass, The 21C Museum, The Mint Museum, The Huntington Museum of Art, The Bellevue Arts Museum and The Oklahoma City Museum of Art, and many others. In addition, the Gallery represents two artists included in the programming of the 54th Venice Biennale, making this the fourth consecutive Biennale in which Gallery artists have been invited to participate. While these accomplishments would be distinguished for any ground floor Chelsea gallery, they are especially significant for one that was started from scratch with only a fierce love of art, commitment to a curatorial focus, and a mere $5,000 in the bank!

Now celebrating its 20th year, Claire Oliver Gallery continues its dedication to leaving a lasting legacy with its artists in the annals of art history. The Gallery’s artists are remarkable in their obsessive dedication to physical process, a commitment to craft, and an intensity of detail. While they work in diverse media (from encaustic to stained glass, light room installation to mirror and crystal sculpture), each artist is equally content- and process-driven. This focus has earned the Gallery a reputation for presenting a singular aesthetic derived from an intense studio practice that is balanced with concept.

Be sure to stop by our booth (A21) and see “Reflection,” on view November 30 – December 4.

Yes We Can | Maquette for 2012 façade installation at Museum of Art and Design, 2 Columbus Circle, New York, NY | Acrylic Glass, Acrylic Mirror, Swarovski Crystals, MDF | 528 x 60 inches

Maquette

Claire Oliver Gallery is proud to announce Judith Schaechter’s installation at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, PA. The USA Artists-funded project has realized a long-standing dream for Schaechter, as the historic site built in 1829 serves as the self-proclaimed ideal setting for her work. After two years of dedication and resolve, the Artist’s installation is just months away from its highly anticipated conclusion and will be on display from May to November of 2012. For those unable to travel to this unique venue for what promises to be an amazing exhibition, these works as well as all preparatory drawings will compose the Artist’s third solo exhibition at the Gallery, immediately following the installation at Eastern State in December of 2012.

Installation

Intentionally avoiding direct inspiration from the Prison’s history so as not to fall victim to simple documentation, the Artist instead has taken on the challenge of tackling prison as a metaphor, imagining what a prisoner might think while looking out the window of a cell. “There is a striking correspondence in these spaces to what one finds in chapels and other places suggestive of enlightenment,” says Schaechter. “The placement of the window—well above the head of a standing person, centrally located on the back wall, resembles the Rose window in a cathedral. This location is charged with profound meaning—the inclusion of a window is more than a mere ‘ray of hope’ for the incarcerated.” With this in mind, Ms. Schaechter has confronted the notion that “everyone has known some type of incarceration,” engaging themes of repentance, redemption, confinement, and rehabilitation through her figurative and ornamental windows. She alludes to narratives from myth, legend, and religious tradition: the Artist’s meticulous process imbues powerful imagery into small spaces, the four-inch wide window limitations not the least of her symbolic references to imprisonment. In contrast to the small windows which inhabit the cells, Judith Schaechter is embarking on one of her largest efforts to-date in the form of a Palladian transom window that anchors Cell Block 11. In this mammoth piece, Schaechter plays on the Battle of Carnival and Lent, pitting binaries like Apollo and Dionysus, Angel and Devil, Patience and Wrath, against one another in an epic conflict based loosely on Pieter Breughel’s sixteenth century original, an endeavor that is sure to be the highlight of the exhibition.

Ms. Schaechter is the recipient of the USA Artist’s Fellowship, the Guggenheim Fellowship Award, the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and a two-time recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Award. She has works in permanent collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Smithsonian Institute of American Art (Washington, DC), the Museum of Arts and Design (New York), the Mint Museum (Charlotte, NC), and the Corning Museum of Glass (Corning, NY). In the past year alone, the Artist has been an esteemed exhibitor at the Renwick Craft Invitational (Smithsonian Institute, DC) and Glasstress, a collateral event at the 54^th Venice Biennale.

Click here to see images of the works to date, the installation, and the proposal

Bernardi Roig | Illuminated Head | Glasstress 2011

Claire Oliver Gallery is currently represented by two artists at the Venice Biennale, making this the fourth consecutive Biennale in which Gallery artists have been invited to participate. The exhibitions wil be on view through November 27th.

Glasstress: Collateral Event of the 54 International Art Exhibition

Over 50 internationally accliamed artists explore the possibilities of glass at the Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti in “Glasstress,” and Bernardi Roig and Judith Schaechter were invited to participate. The exhibition is defined as:

“Smart Artists, Architechts, and Designers creatively express their thoughts and ideas through a new medium – glass. Their contemporary artworks are proof positive of the limitless possibilities inherent in glass.

Glassblowing is hot . . . Glasstress is cool.”

Check out this video of Roig’s “Illuminated Head” being made for Glasstress.

Judith Schaechter | Nature | Stained Glass Lightbox | 27 x 42 x 6 in. | Glasstress 2011

TRA – Edge of Becoming: Collateral Event of the 54 International Art Exhibition

Bernardi Roig was selected by curators Daniela Feretti, Rosa Martinez, Francesco Poli, and Axel Vervoordt to join over 100 artists at the Palazzo Fortuni for “TRA.”

The exhibition is explained:

Bernardi Roig | Installation for TRA 2011

“The title of the exhibition is TRA. Chosen for its strong and suggestive conciseness, that includes also the word “art” (if read at the inverse). As preposition it signifies “in-between”, “inside”, and as prefix it has also the meaning of an action that goes “beyond”, “ahead of”. As a suffix, TRA is common to many Sanskrit words: mantra, tantra, yantra…
TRA recalls the complex and problematic ensemble of cultural and symbolic meanings that are connected to the concept of threshold and door. It concerns a physical and mental place that defines the point of interrelation between inside and outside and vice versa. It relates to the idea of crossing, of being purified and renovated through a ritual or an initiation. It is the space (or empty space) between two dimensions that marks the moment of passage from a condition to another, a breach towards new experiences. It is the idea of border that, seen from the point of view of its surpass, becomes site of process of creative transformation.

Bernardi Roig | Installation for TRA 2011

The subtitle of the exhibition TRA is EDGE OF BECOMING. It relates to the void as the pregnant possibility of energy, to chaos as the state of infinite becoming, and to becoming as the movement towards a situation. While the rational, empiric and technological Western world has abused of the male and Ying power, the Eastern systems of knowledge have always sustained the dynamic processes of non-linear interaction between Yin and Yang polarities. TRA. EDGE OF BECOMING is also looking for that healing balance, for a creative interaction that unfolds every beginning, every birth, every renaissance.”

They are:

-The Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, Wisconsin: Expansion Inaugural Exhibitions

Beth’s “A Rush of Blood to the Head” will be on long-term view.

A Rush of Blood to the Head | Stoneware | 71 x 56 x 18 in. | Chazen Museum of Art, General Endowment Fund and John S. Lord Endowment Fund purchase (2009.40)

“On October 22, 2011, the Chazen Museum of Art will celebrate the opening of its new 86,000-square-foot building and its expanded role as a hub for the arts on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus and a leading cultural resource for the region . . . Visitors will be reacquainted with treasured works and will be able to engage with a range of new acquisitions. The campaign for the expansion spurred donations to facilitate growth in the collections, adding more than 400 works through direct gifts and supporting acquisitions. This includes a gift from Alvin and Terese Lane comprising more than 70 sculptures and 250 preparatory drawings by artists including Jean Arp, Alexander Calder, Louise Nevelson, Pablo Picasso, and David Smith, among other modern masters. Other recent acquisitions and promised gifts include Three Standing Figures from 1953 by Henry Moore; Fools’ Congress #2 by Arnie Zimmerman; In Grandfather’s Arms painted in the late 19th-century by Jozef Israëls; an African Numuma (Burkina Faso) Crocodile Mask of the first quarter of the twentieth century; a Chinese Jin Dynasty Cizhou Ware Tiger Pillow; Beth Cavener Stichter’s recent clay sculpture A Rush of Blood to the Head; several pieces of contemporary studio glass; and seven contemporary Japanese ceramics.”

-Pottery Northwest, Seattle, Washington: The Jean Griffith Fellowship Fith Anniversary Exhibition

Beth is creating new work for this exhibition. We will post images when we have them.

“Pottery Northwest, the region’s premiere ceramic facility, will host the Jean Griffith Fellowship Fifth Anniversary Exhibition this October.  This show of ceramic artists will bring together the work of the visiting artists that have been recipients of the Jean Griffith Fellowship award. The prominent list includes Beth Cavener Stichter, Josh DeWeese, Richard Notkin, Tip Toland and Andy Nasisse.  The show will run from October 8 through October 28, 2011 in the Gallery of Pottery Northwest’s historic home at 226 First Avenue North (between Thomas and John), just one block south of the Key Arena at the Seattle Center.  An Opening Reception will be held on Friday, October 8, at 6 pm.  The public is cordially invited to attend.

The Jean Griffith Fellowship was created to honor the long-time director of Pottery Northwest for much of its first forty years. The fellowship brings artists of national stature to Pottery Northwest to pursue their art work.  Fellowship artists are provided with a stipend in addition to having their materials and firing costs supported while working at Pottery Northwest.  In addition to serving the field of ceramics, the program enriches the studio environment at Pottery Northwest with interaction between the fellowship artists and the artists-in-residence and students.

All five fellowship recipients are practicing studio artists whose work and time are in high demand. The group includes the former director of the Archie Bray Foundation, Josh DeWeese, and former Professor of Ceramics at the University of Georgia, Andy Nasisse. Beth Cavener Stichter and Tip Toland have both been honored with the Virginia A. Groot Foundation Award in sculpture and Richard Notkin is a United States Artist Fellow. Collectively the Jean Griffith Fellowship artists are representative of the diversity and quality of in the field of contemporary ceramics.”

-The Hyde Gallery, Nesin Graduate Center, Memphis College of Art, Memphis, Tennessee: Adrift

Beth’s “Anywhere But Here” will be featured in this exhibition.

Anywhere But Here | Stoneware | 41 x 21 x 9 in. | Private Collection

“Memphis College of Art hosts  Adrift, a New Visions Series Exhibition, September 18 – November 13, 2011 in the Hyde Gallery, Nesin Graduate School located at 477 South Main.  A Trolley Night Reception is Friday, September 30 from 6 to 9 pm. The exhibition, curated by MCA Professor Cynthia Nourse Thompson, includes works by:  Janine Antoni, Beth Cavener Stichter, Petah Coyne, Jason Dodge, Nils Ericson, Markus Hansen, Erin Harmon, Damien Hirst and Miranda Lichtenstein.  In conjunction with the exhibition, ArtsMemphis Gallery presents a video installation by Donna Smith.”

Judith Schaechter | An Invocation | Stained Glass Lightbox | 24 x 33 x 6 in.

Claire Oliver Gallery is proud to annouce that not one but two Gallery Artists will be featured in the upcoming exhibition “Cute and Creepy” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University. Lori Field and Judith Schaechter are each represented by multiple works, totaling in 9 individual loans to the show (illustrated in this post). “Cute and Creepy” will be on view from October 14 – November 20, 2011.

Lori Field | The Little Death | Colored Pencil Mounted on Wooden Panel with Encuastic | 12 x 12 in.

See the exhibition’s website here for more information, including a calendar of events (Judith will be giving a lecture on October 13) as well as an “About the Artists” section that has images and information on both Judith and Lori.

The Curator’s statement reads:

With the recent and publicly-celebrated exhibitions of Tim Burton at MOMA and Edward Gorey at the Wadsworth Athenaeum, now is the time to revel in the genre of the macabre. This work is cute and it’s creepy…it’s what I like about contemporary art.

After growing up wondering whether all the great art had already been made, I feel there are more amazing artists working now than ever before.

 Over the past six years, I have exhibited with the artists taking part in this show or have discovered their work through attending their exhibitions. It’s been such a pleasure to see the rise of this wave of dark art and the Pop surrealists that this exhibition promotes.

 To see beauty in the carnivalesque or macabre, in freaks and in monsters, is a matter of aesthetics. Most of us can agree on the artistic value of a Monet or Titian but this work is for a daring audience, an audience open to exploring the strange beauty and the ecstasy inherent in our culture’s aversions.

 There is something that makes us uneasy when confronted by the weird or the unusual. Those who can appreciate both have come to anticipate and enjoy unexpected sensations. Work of this nature is not going to be an underground movement any longer: the grotesque is going mainstream.

Lori Field | The Children of Lir | Colored Pencil Mounted on Wooden Panel with Encaustic | 30 x 30 x 3 in.

Lori Field | Pas de Chance | Silverpoint drawing | 48 x 50 in.

Judith Schaechter | The Cold Genius | Giclee Print | 35.75 x 47 x 1.75 in.

Judith Schaechter | Skull Pie | Pigment Print | 18 x 21.25 in.

 

Judith Schaechter | Mad Meg | Graphite on Paper | 23 x 12 in.

 

Judith Schaechter | Feral Child | Archival Digital Print | 27.25 x 61.5 x 1.75 in.

In Bocca al Lupo | Stoneware based mixed media sculpture

Beth Cavener Stichter working on her latest creation, “In Bocca al Lupo.” 

“In Bocca al Lupo” is an Italian proverb, meaning “in the mouth of the wolf.” You can read an article about its meaning and use here.

Check out photos of Cavener Stichter’s extensive process here.

You can see more images of her work here.