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DiggBeth Galston and Shona Macdonald
March 22, 2008- April 19, 2008
Reception: March 22, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Beth Galston, Shona Macdonald
Reeves Contemporary
535 W 24th StBeth Galston, a Boston-based conceptual artist and Shona Macdonald, a Boston-based artist originally from Scotland open an exhibiton at Reeves Contemporary on Tuesday, March 25th with an artists' reception on Saturday, March 22nd between 6-8 p.m. The show continues through April 19th, 2008.
Beth Galston's "Luminous Garden (Origins)" is a new large-scale, walk-through installation created specifically for Reeves Contemporary. Galston created this free-flowing improvisational installation by using a simple repertoire of materials-colored LEDs, cast resin seedpods, and tangles of electrical wire. Galston's "garden" is a glowing environment of tall spidery plant-like forms inspired by nature and its processes. The installation creates a sculptural world entirely comprised of man-made, industrial materials.
The installation is a three-dimensional drawing in space with a network of wire lines of different weights and gestures, clusters of glowing colored forms, shadows, air, and space. Some of the flora hangs vertically like seaweed; others are loosely tethered to the ground, suggesting the possibility of movement. Additional forms, reminiscent of nests or webs, float freely in the air. This garden is the fifth in the series of "Luminous Garden" environments. While the previous gardens were set in the ground and "planted," suggesting a cultivated place, this garden is a wilder community of plants breaking loose from the ground and undergoing a metamorphosis.
Galston's luminous installation projects have been shown at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Mass, and at Wave Hill, NYC, among a number of other institutions. Major public works include: "Colorwalk," an eighty foot long sculpture of colored glass for the Mesa Arts Center, AZ; "Thunderbird Bridge," a vehicular bridge for Phoenix, AZ; and "Tree/House," an outdoor architectural sculpture at Socrates Sculpture Park, NYC, a work that is featured on the cover of their anniversary monograph.
Galston is the recipient of numerous awards, including a two-year fellowship from the Bunting Institute, Radcliffe, an NEA InterArts award, a Massachusetts Artists Fellowship in Sculpture, and residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, and Sculpture Space, Inc
Shona Macdonald's recent work uses a form of collage to expand on the semiotic similarities between maps and fractals and to address issues of place, location, memory and land. By employing finely cut up envelopes, almost sliver-like, Macdonald attempts to find ways to decode the signs and myths inherent to maps and re-invest their utilitarian function with personal narrative. She is interested in the tension between place that is longed for and place that is actualized. This tension is investigated through imagery that is fragmented then seamed back together.
Macdonald uses plain canvas as her backdrop; there is no paint in these collaged works. The fluid lines and marvelously detailed patterning is all accomplished through the careful application of recycled, shredded envelopes.
This current series continues an investigation she began several years ago, and which follows a series of paintings and drawings that refer exclusively to land mass, islands, and the mapping of shorelines and topographies. One can see how this inquiry into the land-lines lends another level of sinuous fluidity to the current 'envelope' paintings. Macdonald refers as well to the work of Beth Galston, who is showing concurrent with Macdonald at Reeves Contemporary; and in sympathy with Galston's untethered 'flower' installation, Macdonald has created tendril-like collages mimicking the life and color evident in Galston's conceptual work.
Shona Macdonald received her MFA in 1996 in studio arts from the University of Illinois in Chicago and her BFA in 1992 from Glasgow School of Art in Scotland. Her work has been reviewed in the national publication, Art in America, Art News, (Both for Solo Shows) and she has been nominated for a Louis Comfort Tiffany award, (2002). She has been a Visiting Artist at Wimbledon College of Art London, (1998), Georgia State University, Atlanta, (2007), the University of Alberta, and the University of Calgary, both Canada, (2002).
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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