January 8 - February 21, 2010
Meridith McNeal
In the Footsteps of the Starry Messenger
.jpg)
McNeal, Buckled Show with Red Heel, ink/watercolor, 7" x 7"
Figureworks is pleased to present In The Footsteps of the Starry Messenger by artist Meridith McNeal. The exhibition includes over 40 nib pen and ink drawings painted in watercolor, ranging from 7 inches to 7 feet, and is inspired by a seminal scientific event that changed the course of history. Some background:
In January 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei observed three very bright objects close to Jupiter. After several nights, he noticed that the pattern changed and a fourth bright object became visible. Galileo explained there were four satellites which revolved about Jupiter and Jupiter and its satellites revolved around the sun. To Galileo, it followed that the sun must be the center of the universe. In March 1610, he published the results of his observations in his book, The Starry Messenger. On the evening of April 14, 1611, Galileo demonstrated his theory to the influential philosophers and mathematicians of the Jesuit Collegio Romano, letting them see with their own eyes through his telescope the reality of the four moons of Jupiter. They were also able to read an inscription on a building three miles away. While in Rome he was also made a member of the Accademia dei Lincei, the first formal scientific society founded by Prince Federico Cesi.
McNeal explains the connection of her exhibition to Galileo: “While in residence at The American Academy in Rome in spring 2009, I was working in a studio on the actual site where Galileo first set up his telescope for his colleagues at the Jesuit Collegio Romano, which was followed by a formal banquet to celebrate the occasion. This fascinating historical link became the springboard for my exhibition, In The Footsteps of the Starry Messenger. The work is about the people who have been in that particular space and what they have done there. I chose to draw shoes to represent the people themselves. For source material, I stopped people on the street in Rome to photograph their shoes, made sketches in museums, and looked at shoe images in Roman advertising. Also on view are images relating to Accademia dei Lincei, and to my own idea of a banquet: my Roman food and my kitchen at the Academy.”
“I hope you will be pleased to see that on this side of the mountains also men are not lacking who travel in your footsteps.” 1612 Letter from Mark Welser to Galileo Galilei
February 26 - April 4, 2010
Reception: February 26th 6-9PM
Susan Newmark
CUT & COLOR: THE JANES
Collages and Artists Books
.jpg)
Newmark, Jane's Eyes (detail), collage
ARTIST STATEMENT:
CUT & COLOR is a series of mixed media collages and artists books based on the persona of Jane Russell, one of the first “bad girl” movie stars whose sensual omnipotent persona was a harbinger of today’s cult of celebrity. Jane’s image is appropriated from a vintage coloring/paper doll book made for little girls combined with icons from current fashion, film, tattoo and skin magazines. An early Barbie, she works, plays, travels, sails, dresses and socializes -- always alluring and always in total control. But, while Jane’s gaze conveys confidence and an assertive engagement with the world and is slightly illicit, in my work she is simultaneously struggling and unraveling, losing body parts, morphing and fragmenting or disappearing entirely into herself. It is these very human states of uncertainty, fear, anxiety, and obsessiveness that interests me in exploring the disparate clash of public message and personal reality. My working process of cutting, tearing, layering, sanding and layering again with drawing and color, parallels my fascination with simultaneous levels of meaning as I explore my own emotional identity,and reflect upon the many contradictions of being female. This additive process with its cumulative layering of paper, drawing, images and color creates a dense web of vision that incorporates accident and improvisation. My unique artists books, whose structures are altered children’s cardboard books, add glitzy decorative objects to collage ,and reflect upon Jane’s various body parts and their need for adornments along with simple directives for the voyage through life.
Figureworks
168 North 6th Street
Williamsburg • Brooklyn, NY 11211
718-486-7021
Hours: Friday, Saturday, Sunday
1 - 6 pm or by appointment
.jpg)