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Object/Imprint

Tracy Featherstone: "Hit the Ground Running"
January 17 - March 3, 2012
12:00AM - 12:00AM
Urban Arts Space

Date Range
Add to Calendar 2012-01-17 00:00:00 2012-03-03 00:00:00 Object/Imprint ReceptionSaturday | January 28 | 6 to 8pmObject/Imprint showcases the work of regional artists who expand on the contexts of object in their approach, and art category. The conceptual aim of Object/Imprint is to exhibit artists who have transitioned from traditional art making mediums into non-traditional realms while maintaining a fixation on objects that typify those root traditions. These works address object obsession, proliferation, memory, and value; adapting and shifting through media, idea, place, or situation in an attempt to expand their work conceptually and go beyond the object it self.Each of the artists of Object/Imprint has roots in a traditional art discipline such as fiber, printmaking, or ceramics, yet all are linked by their material and conceptual evolution. The familiar objects are stretched to create a concept that is heightened by the context these elements are introduced to or combined with. Object/Imprint is the culmination of each artist’s evolution from tradition, material, concept and identity through the manipulation of the object. The exhibition presents work that questions or names a place or object that has a metaphoric and direct relationship to the hand and the body.This is evident once you approach the work by Maidens of the Cosmic Body Running, which is large and interactive.  Color, sound, and texture call the viewer to take part in the experience of the piece; sitting down on a large hand-hooked rug, the viewer in turn becomes part of the work.Contrasting to this invitation, the furniture reconstructions of Tracy Featherstone no longer have room for the body. The broken and altered furniture moves away from occupancy as they exchange utility for a place for the mind to rest. They retain the memory of function but have veered into a realm of tenuous instability.The works of Patrick O’Rorke are pieced and precarious, the large looming forms and paintings have a command of scale and girth that confronts those who approach them. They are at times menacing and delicate, infused with a bold use of color that takes form as amplified paintings swelling with a three-dimensional presence, or works that camouflage and conceal the body.This contrasts with the work of Melissa Vogley Woods, whose pieces read as temporal, constructed fragments that reference a real scale and materiality of the house and its relationship to the body. Evidence of the hand in the work is translated by the cut, the imprint, and the stacking as a testimonial of the labor of the work.Seeing Josh Foy’s monumental sculpture, you can’t help but think of the excess of our commodity and how it manifests on our bodies as this work towers above us. The weight is noticed both as it dwarfs the viewer with it’s size and mass, but also as it implicates you in creation with its tactile familiarity.The intricate work of Mary Jo Bole articulates an ode to the end of the body; the finality of time and place; and the fallibility of memory of what was, what is, and what is inevitable. By reconciling family histories through a lens straight out of the Victorian era, Bole illuminates our place on earth as one that can span great poignancy and great loss.Artist BiographiesMary Jo Bole's sculptural materials tend to be geologic in origin, but she works in drawing and book arts as well. Her sculpture tends to be funereal in content, shaped by her lineage experienced in the urban decay of her hometown, Cleveland. Currently she is working on an artists book project at Logan Elm Press titled "Toilet Worship" edition 120. Her installation at the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site in Philadelphia, titled "Purge Incomplete", centering on the prison's early plumbing and fascinating history, was two years in the making. The work was supported by artist residencies at the Kohler Sanitary Factory (Wisconsin) in iron and resin and Bole was the visiting artist at the Pilchuck Glass School (Washington). Recent exhibitions with catalogues available include "Of Other Spaces", curated by James Voorhies, Bureau For Open Culture at Columbus College of Art and Design and Bole's 2005 solo exhibition "Dear Little Twist of Fate" at the Aronoff Center Weston Art Gallery, Cincinnati. She has exhibited work in the United States, Russia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Germany.  She has received numerous grants including six Ohio Arts Council grants, Andy Warhol Foundation (through Women's Studio Workshop), Greater Columbus Arts Council Grant, and an NEA grant through Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago. Patrick O'Rorke is a painter who works in various non-traditional painting mediums.  Having lived in northern New England for many years his work is influenced by craft and Yankee ingenuity blended with his own sense of twisted Formalist painting tropes. Recent works have been comprised of plastic, wood, paper and colorful packing tape, in an assortment of applications, patterns and dimensions. These works, described as the phantom limbs of paintings, push, twist, break and undo themselves depending on the application.Maidens of the Cosmic Body Running, Denise Burge, Lisa Siders and Jenny Ustick explore states of melancholy and ecstasy throughout their work. Utilizing film, installations, and individualized objects as their mediums, the pair uses lace and other textiles to represent physicality and the ephemeral. Their work references forms of ritual trance and archaic memory. The object is known, yet its form and meaning shift.Melissa Vogley Woods is interested in how a place is determined, occupied, crafted or compromised. Using building materials, debris, readymade fragments, she examines the utility and form of the constructed environment through a process of excavation, dissection, isolation and modification.Josh Foy mixes plastic, Styrofoam, and found objects indistinguishably with hand-built, thrown, and cast ceramic components. Foy’s inspiration is derived from contemporary political events and ceramic and art histories. The object is in mass, overwhelming viewers with information and leaving them to sift through notions of handmade and the importance of material. Urban Arts Space Urban Arts Space uas@osu.edu America/New_York public


Reception

Saturday | January 28 | 6 to 8pm

Object/Imprint showcases the work of regional artists who expand on the contexts of object in their approach, and art category. The conceptual aim of Object/Imprint is to exhibit artists who have transitioned from traditional art making mediums into non-traditional realms while maintaining a fixation on objects that typify those root traditions. These works address object obsession, proliferation, memory, and value; adapting and shifting through media, idea, place, or situation in an attempt to expand their work conceptually and go beyond the object it self.

Each of the artists of Object/Imprint has roots in a traditional art discipline such as fiber, printmaking, or ceramics, yet all are linked by their material and conceptual evolution. The familiar objects are stretched to create a concept that is heightened by the context these elements are introduced to or combined with. Object/Imprint is the culmination of each artist’s evolution from tradition, material, concept and identity through the manipulation of the object. The exhibition presents work that questions or names a place or object that has a metaphoric and direct relationship to the hand and the body.

This is evident once you approach the work by Maidens of the Cosmic Body Running, which is large and interactive.  Color, sound, and texture call the viewer to take part in the experience of the piece; sitting down on a large hand-hooked rug, the viewer in turn becomes part of the work.

Contrasting to this invitation, the furniture reconstructions of Tracy Featherstone no longer have room for the body. The broken and altered furniture moves away from occupancy as they exchange utility for a place for the mind to rest. They retain the memory of function but have veered into a realm of tenuous instability.

The works of Patrick O’Rorke are pieced and precarious, the large looming forms and paintings have a command of scale and girth that confronts those who approach them. They are at times menacing and delicate, infused with a bold use of color that takes form as amplified paintings swelling with a three-dimensional presence, or works that camouflage and conceal the body.

This contrasts with the work of Melissa Vogley Woods, whose pieces read as temporal, constructed fragments that reference a real scale and materiality of the house and its relationship to the body. Evidence of the hand in the work is translated by the cut, the imprint, and the stacking as a testimonial of the labor of the work.

Seeing Josh Foy’s monumental sculpture, you can’t help but think of the excess of our commodity and how it manifests on our bodies as this work towers above us. The weight is noticed both as it dwarfs the viewer with it’s size and mass, but also as it implicates you in creation with its tactile familiarity.

The intricate work of Mary Jo Bole articulates an ode to the end of the body; the finality of time and place; and the fallibility of memory of what was, what is, and what is inevitable. By reconciling family histories through a lens straight out of the Victorian era, Bole illuminates our place on earth as one that can span great poignancy and great loss.

Artist Biographies

Mary Jo Bole's sculptural materials tend to be geologic in origin, but she works in drawing and book arts as well. Her sculpture tends to be funereal in content, shaped by her lineage experienced in the urban decay of her hometown, Cleveland. Currently she is working on an artists book project at Logan Elm Press titled "Toilet Worship" edition 120. Her installation at the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site in Philadelphia, titled "Purge Incomplete", centering on the prison's early plumbing and fascinating history, was two years in the making. The work was supported by artist residencies at the Kohler Sanitary Factory (Wisconsin) in iron and resin and Bole was the visiting artist at the Pilchuck Glass School (Washington). Recent exhibitions with catalogues available include "Of Other Spaces", curated by James Voorhies, Bureau For Open Culture at Columbus College of Art and Design and Bole's 2005 solo exhibition "Dear Little Twist of Fate" at the Aronoff Center Weston Art Gallery, Cincinnati. She has exhibited work in the United States, Russia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Germany.  She has received numerous grants including six Ohio Arts Council grants, Andy Warhol Foundation (through Women's Studio Workshop), Greater Columbus Arts Council Grant, and an NEA grant through Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago. 

Patrick O'Rorke is a painter who works in various non-traditional painting mediums.  Having lived in northern New England for many years his work is influenced by craft and Yankee ingenuity blended with his own sense of twisted Formalist painting tropes. Recent works have been comprised of plastic, wood, paper and colorful packing tape, in an assortment of applications, patterns and dimensions. These works, described as the phantom limbs of paintings, push, twist, break and undo themselves depending on the application.

Maidens of the Cosmic Body Running, Denise Burge, Lisa Siders and Jenny Ustick explore states of melancholy and ecstasy throughout their work. Utilizing film, installations, and individualized objects as their mediums, the pair uses lace and other textiles to represent physicality and the ephemeral. Their work references forms of ritual trance and archaic memory. The object is known, yet its form and meaning shift.

Melissa Vogley Woods is interested in how a place is determined, occupied, crafted or compromised. Using building materials, debris, readymade fragments, she examines the utility and form of the constructed environment through a process of excavation, dissection, isolation and modification.

Josh Foy mixes plastic, Styrofoam, and found objects indistinguishably with hand-built, thrown, and cast ceramic components. Foy’s inspiration is derived from contemporary political events and ceramic and art histories. The object is in mass, overwhelming viewers with information and leaving them to sift through notions of handmade and the importance of material.

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