Creature Comforts
October 6 – November 2, 2018
Presented at the Kathryn Schultz Gallery
Small Group Show featuring Christine Kyle, Gail Samuelson, Gin Stone & Daniel Zeese
Events
Opening Reception | October 6, 6-8pm
Artist Talk | October 25, 6:30-8pm
Exhibition Statement | Enter Another Environment: a landscape of contrasts, with creatures and beings spotlighted in their native realm. Some are adapted to wetlands, other an environment unrecognizable to humans. In this hall, visitors will explore a hauntingly beautiful, otherworldly depiction of an ethereal, foreign place, and encounter its remarkable residents face-to-face. In addition to stage-like lighting, there will be a mood-conjuring insect soundtrack playing over speakers, with environmental debris on some floor areas (including twigs, straw and longline fishing gear).
Click here to download the Creature Comforts Press Release
About Christine Kyle | This work is created with questions of insight and direction. The bases, predominantly ceramic, are simple, organic forms standing in for the messiness of life. A geometric face or window slices through each piece, keeping its attention on the search for certainty. Their surfaces, made primarily of wax, damar resin and pigment, give each piece its own character. There is great opportunity and delight in manipulating my medium, but surprisingly, if I pay attention, the clay and wax have a way of telling me when to acquiesce. The stature of my creatures range within intimate dimensions. The wall portals are complementary pieces to the creatures. They add the challenge of dimensionality and the view through their portals is inward.
About Gail Samuelson | Several years ago, beavers plugged up a brook and flooded the forest behind my house, creating a pond. From the trail, I watched as a surprising lime green mud circled the drowning plants. Over time, trees began to lean towards each other as they lost their grip on the water soaked soil.
Eventually, the beavers moved on, the water receded and the ground became passable again. What was once home to wood ducks and red winged black birds was now open to me. I stepped off the trail to photograph with a large format film camera that helps me slow down and look differently. I see beauty in the old leafless trees reaching towards the sky as new plants begin to grow in the rich decaying matter of upturned stumps. It is perfectly quiet except for the sound of cracking dead wood as I make my way further into the swamp. The predawn fog rises up from the ground, briefly casting its spell. Then in a moment, the sun peaks out over the trees, lighting each leaf and cobweb. Birds begin to sing.
About Gin Stone | I am an ardent environmentalist and lover of living creatures. I previously worked solely with paint and panel, and this experience has given me my base knowledge of color and form in space. My last 5 years of work has been combining these things in a new way, humane taxidermy. I use hand dyed reclaimed longline fishing gear as a medium. The material itself is part of my work’s innate narrative. The local fishing culture is deeply ingrained in the environment I live in, my studio is on Cape Cod. More recently the science community has come into the arena to help recover retain the health of oceans. There is frequently a clashing between these two groups. By bringing the recovery and recycling of the fishing gear to the artistic arena, I can help put a spotlight on collaboration and creativity, and perhaps a hopeful outlook on the future from everyone involved.
About Daniel Zeese | Daniel Zeese is an artist, designer and educator practicing in Somerville and Boston Massachusetts. His latest work explores populations, belonging, and identity within an urban environment. Inspired by a history of textiles and the domestic objects that we bring into our home to create refuge, Daniel reveals a way to let our minds return to nature while our bodies inhabit the city.
His work investigates what it means to be within civilization while on the edge of the wilderness. Outnumbered, on the fringe of what is accepted in the city, celebrated from a distance, and threatened to exile by the powers of the majority. Daniel reacts to the continuing history of violence within cities against people who, while defining the cultural identity of a place, are often misunderstood, attacked and objectified. Later we experience the outcome, the resulting martyrdom, through the master cultural narrative. This body of work explores, in many mediums, whom it is we choose to mourn and celebrate.
