Micaëla Gallery is pleased to announce the Winter Salon 2010 exhibition of artwork by artists Kathleen Elliot, Grant Garmezy, Scott Kildall, Mark Leibowitz, Silvia Levenson, Prema Murthy, Eugenia Pardue, Lorraine Peltz, and Nicole Schmoelzer.
Opening with a private reception co-hosted by Leibowitz and Ruinart Champagne (a Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy company), the exhibition presents work unified by ideas of extravagant beauty and thoughtful indulgences.
Images by California-based photographer Mark Leibowitz's portfolio, an ongoing series titled, "Backstage" will be featured collaboratively with Ruinart (LVMH) and Whitewall Magazine at his introduction to Art Basel Miami at the Betsy Hotel on December 2. Plan to read Whitewall Magazine’s post-Art Basel Miami commentary.
The Winter Salon 2010 opens for viewing November 2, 2011.
We're very excited that Mark Leibowitz joins us for the reception on Thursday, November 4, from 5 to 7.30 pm. We hope you will help us welcome him and discuss his globe-trotting work for the fashion avant garde and haute couture houses such as Vogue and Galliano.
You won't want to miss seeing Leibowitz’s exquisite images, so please mark your calendar now.
Grant Garmezy.
Edith, 2009.
Blown + hot sculpted glass.
26 x 13 in.
It is very exciting to open COLD+HOT 2009, a comprehensive sculpture exhibition celebrating the use of glass as a fine art medium. In San Francisco, there is a particular excitement about opening an exhibition where the focus is glass. The San Francisco Bay Area is the birthplace of the West Coast glass movement, and home to many fine artists who work almost exclusively with glass as their medium of expression (as one artist emphasized in his statement, to say they are ‘glass artists’ is as much a misnomer as saying Leonardo da Vinci was a draftsman because he knew how to draw, or that Michelangelo was a mere marble artist, and Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel were bronze artists just because they might, arguably, be known only for their sculpture). Prior to San Francisco’s M.H. de Young Museum opening of its Saxe Collection, the idea of glass as a sculptural medium wasn’t seriously entertained. In fact, many contemporary art critics and collectors continue to relegate the use of glass exclusively as a craft medium today. And so, the dialogue of glass as a fine art medium continues, with growing awareness that it is a fickle and demanding tool, evolving as a lyrical and sophisticated medium of artistic expression.
The inner circle of glass collectors is a small and surprisingly organized cognoscenti who followed the studio glass movement from the early1960s through its vision of contemporary art today. In the United States, they study the work of artists such as Marvin Lipofsky, Harvey Littleton, William Morris, Lino Tagliapietra, Mary White, and who hasn’t heard of Dale Chihuly? The inner circle includes curator Tina Oldnow, critics James Yood and (the late) Dan Klein, gallerists William Traver and Douglas Heller (and their eponymous galleries), as well as San Francisco’s own collectors and philanthropists, Dorothy and Gordon Saxe.
The focus of COLD+HOT 2009 is the material, glass. It is about glass as a medium of artistic expression, as sculpture. Most of the artists presented possess enviable academic credentials (BFA or MFA) with emphasis in glass, painting or sculpture. They studied form, light and space, and are masters of their medium whether it is blown, cast, engraved or laminated. Some of the artists focus on the form captured by the exterior planes of their sculpture, or the optics created by sculpting the exterior as well as uses of material to develop their artistic vision. Some of the artists are ‘outsider’ artists, who mastered their craft indirectly while working with the medium, and developed conceptual ideas iterated via glass. And, to mix it up, yes, we included two painters, who have no material relationship to the medium of glass. All the artists in this exhibition are fine artists.
Peter Bremers sailed away to the Antarctic a few years ago. His series, “Icebergs and Paraphernalia” is in direct relationship to the landscape and light he studied during his adventure. Eric Franklin’s anatomical forms don’t leave much to the imagination – here is a pair of hands, this is a rib cage, and these are a pair of feet. Skeletal, formed with borosilicate glass (commonly known as Pyrex), his combined use of lamp worked glass with neon and krypton gases is electrifying. Grant Garmezy grew up on a farm in Tennessee, and his childhood memories of long lost animal life continue to be a source for his award-winning sculpture. Phillip Hua’s expressive series “De/Construction” studies his recent experience in Beijing as light was obscured by atmospheric industrial waste. Michelle Knox continues to build her year of awards and scholarship with “Chorten Stones,” an imposing abstracted temple of blown glass and oil painted forms. Weston Lambert sculpts the interior of his works, laminates them, and sculpts the exterior in his preservation of fleeting memories. Susan Longini addresses the fragility of the passage of time; Greg Nangle celebrates the perfection of the imperfect; Nancy Otto shows us that some things, such as desire, can be larger than life; Lorraine Peltz addresses the feminine ideal and identity; Stig Persson studies the tension of interior and exterior spatial relationships, along with Chantal Royant; while Thomas Scoon turns to companionship and community with juxtapositions of glass and stone. Carmen Spera, deliberately shuns the title of ‘glass artist’ yet puns the term and material with laminated weaponry that lampoons the ongoing parallel fascinations of high fashion with violence. Jennifer Umphress celebrates the use of borosilicate glass with an ongoing dialogue of the natural world; Kristiina Uslar contrasts the extreme delicacy of pâte-de-verre with her sculptures of industrial shapes; and Sasha Zhitneva employs light to emphasize the painted forms of her kiln worked glass planes.
COLD+HOT 2009 celebrates the work of these artists with their presentations of cold worked (carved, engraved, polished) glass and hot worked (blown, cast, kiln fired) glass and painting (acrylic, mixed media, and oil). The premised material for this exhibition is glass presented within three basic ranges: borosilicate (the most heat resistant), soda glass (the most common), and lead glass (also known as crystal). The artworks employ all the classic and formal methods knows to sculpture, such as carving and lost wax casting, and in some cases, develop new methods to feature the lyrical and poetic qualities of light captured by glass. Many of the artists in COLD+HOT 2009 are prestigious academics and graduates, elite within their respective programs, some are gifted with continuous awards recognizing their work, while others enjoy the prestige of commissions at venues like the Waldorf Astoria and abroad. They are all, without question, fine artists with relevant ideas in step with today’s dialogue and social commentary, whose practice is presented with mastery and well-developed skill, and whose work is not only engaging, but beautiful and visually pleasurable.
Thanks to his blog, we have updates on Grant Garmezy's work!
Congratulations, Grant, on your inclusion to the Morgan Gallery’s 3rd Teapot Invitational. This year’s theme, teapots! steep in thought, will attract glass sculptors from around the world. Museums and collectors have purchased many of the pieces from previous teapot exhibitions.
I mentioned earlier that Grant enjoys prestigious awards - among the best is the Royal Scottish Academy feature of Grant Garmezy's work from April 25 - May 26 2008 at the Royal Scottish Academy’s 182nd Annual Exhibition in Edinburgh, Scotland. The piece, entitled, "Delicious," (above image, 2008, 12 x 5 in., blown glass) was awarded the RSA Benno Scholtz Prize for most promising work by a young sculptor in Scotland.
It's easy to see how/why he was awarded the prize - the work inspires highly emotive reactions in the viewer, a certain attraction based on color (is that a bright red tongue?), imagery (what is this a sculpture of, exactly?, and polished quality. Understanding Grant's memory-based work, renders additional appreciation of his sculpture, mature set of representational ideas and well-developed glass-blowing skill. Bravo, Grant!
Grant Garmezy grew up on a farm in Tennessee. That accounts for his figurative work with glass. He wrote, in his statement, about fossilizing particular memories and using glass to create unique forms that have a familiarity with daily life. Garmezy's work is an interesting blend of abstract with figurative - when viewing his work, it appears to be an obvious representation of something that you know and need to make sure you know, until you get up close and wonder, "What in the world did I think this was?" He joins the wave of young artists who tread the cusp of figurative and abstract work with formidable technique in a variety of media addressing the vernacular of common culture. A couple of days ago, I wrote about Ned Cantrell's work in this regard. Similarly, Garmezy's work hints of common culture, but it doesn't address my daily life, because I didn't grown up in the country (did you?). Instead, his work compels that second look, often several more, because the forms are so lifelike and possess a certain sad sweetness. Garmezy's work is hot, sculpted from the inside, occasionally manipulated in a kiln after the original sculpting is rendered. It takes a lot of work, a lot of friends (he just graduated from school), and a lot of physical strength and balance to create work of this kind - and all to good effect, as he was notably awarded the RSA Benno Scholz Prize for most promising sculptor in the U.K. Garmezy won awards and scholarships galore - deservedly, his work possesses classic reference to sculpture with respectable technical mastery of the special qualities unique to glass based on his particular memories of time and place. On a personal note, he honored us with a visit on the opening night of his debut at COLD+HOT 2008. A 21st century version of a young Southern gentleman, he was informative, kind and polite to all inquiries about his work and technique at the opening.
