Thursday, May 14, 2015

MAPPING: Finding A Way

MAPPING - FINDING A WAY

 Consciously or not, we each set our own direction, choose our own path.  Artists express forward momentum in visual terms.  Works below range from literal map references to artists' metaphorical, internal compasses.   
In this show, art represents some of the members of ProWax. Each artist's name links to a website.  At the end of this show, you'll find a link to ProWax Journal.



             Boundless Series #1, Dorothy Cochran, 2015
Relief embossing, 14" x 11"
"This series is a metaphor for mapping a firestorm of inspiration, overlapping thoughts and the push/pull of moving outside of limits and confinements.  The heavily embossed paper undulates visibly with the energy and strain of the search for focus."




Bark Blue, Pamela W. Wallace, 2014
Encaustic, collagraph collage, 12" x 12"
"This piece is from a series mapping transitions in life - moving through places/spaces, and creating a new existence built on remnants of the past. Fibonacci rectangles created with fragments of old work beckon entry or exit."


Remnant Transits 1, Elise Wagner, 2015
Encaustic and oil
"Painting for me is navigation; abstraction is navigation. Mapping has come to be a universal theme in my work, manifest through a series of decisions about color, scale, line, composition and content."





The Singing Tree XI, Debra Claffey, 2015
Oil monotype/graphite/pigment stick,  22" x 30"
"In navigating my known world and the unseen, verticals and horizontals in my work become longitude and latitude. Contours denote edges that are illusory and, in fact, serve only 
to locate oneself (one’s self) in time."




Hidden Ghosts, Patricia Dusman, 2015
Encaustic, 24" x 24"
"This piece is visually topographical, akin to an aerial view, as seen through a thin veil of clouds.
The imagined land mass in the middle of an ocean represents journey through time."





You Are Here, Peggy Epner, 2014
Ink, wax, wood, and thread, 21" x 19"
"An X on a map.  The desire to hold or be held in a fixed point, if only briefly, in order to get one's bearings - an origination point, a destination."





Looking Out, Sandra Quinn, 2014
Encaustic, 16" x 18"
"Following my inner road map, I wish to create an atmosphere of space that reflects my history and experiences. The journey connects past to present, present to future."




Mapping a Place 13, Lisa Pressman, 2015
Oil and cold wax, 12" x 12"
"Mapping  for me is about location, time, travel and a metaphor for finding a new place."




Watershed Moment #4, Leslie Sobel, 2012
Encaustic monotype, 48" x 24"
"This series was inspired by chaperoning a high school service trip to New Orleans post Hurricane Katrina, which made the power and the significance of the Mississippi River painfully, viscerally real. After the trip I discovered a series of beautiful survey maps of the river by Harold Fisk 1940s and  used them to help make work with motion and physicality echoing my emotion about the power of the river’s ever changing channels." 




16,000 Keys, Joan Stuart Ross, 2012
Inlaid encaustic, collage, and keys, 18" x 21"
"These embedded keys locked and unlocked my living and work spaces and are an iconic part of the intricate grid of where I live and create my art."




Pangaea 20-12, Corina S. Alvarezdelugo, 2012
Recycled atlas, thread, encaustic and gold leaf, 9.5" x 9" x 8.5"
"It is believed that 300 million years ago, all the continents we know today were once together as a 'supercontinent' before they split up, and this massive land was called a “Pangaea.” Today, thanks to the Internet and social media, it seems as if we are moving back together into one big cyber-land, hence the name of this piece."




Gangway, Nancy Natale, 2014
Found and invented materials with encaustic and tacks, 24" x 24"
"'Gangway' is more about finding the way than mapping. It took me several tries and quite a few false starts to make that orange line work and end up at a place that made visual sense to me."




Inland Steel L3, Jeffrey Hirst, 2015
  encaustic, silkscreen on shaped panel, 45" x 25"
"I use visual information to navigate my interest in architectonic structure, examining how architecture defines social space in an urban environment.  My work travels a very process-oriented path that leads to play, discovery and transformations that refer to the juxtaposition of both decay and beauty in the same piece."



You will find these artist and more in issues of ProWax Journal.