ADA KOCH, AMY WRIGHT, NEUROFIBROMATOSIS
MARCH 3 - 31, 2017
ADA KOCH is about layering – layering in the process, and layers of time passing depicted in the images. The contemporary scenes are done in bright oil paints and oil pastels, or sometimes with black silhouettes, on top of the acrylic base. Since the tragic events of 9-11, Koch has been planning a body of work that expresses her fears about losing someone she loves to a war. Koch started this work with the challenge of depicting love, violence and loss in a credible, affecting, and even beautiful way. The pieces incorporate famous art about war as a backdrop to contemporary life scenes with an often startling mix of violence, blood and playfulness. She choose to incorporate and refer to art history and famous works dedicated to glorify, to chastise, to vilify, to explore our inextricable relationship with war and violence. Through these works, Koch shares fears, questions, and very personal emotions.
AMY WRIGHT‘s paintings and drawings (and the marks within them) are small to engage the viewer in an intimate link, like a secret is being divulged. Upon closer inspection, methods of fragmentation become visible. It’s the language she uses to communicate and it’s a personal custom of coping. Wright’s recent body of work began as an exploration of the lush patterns and colors found in food objects. As the project progressed, the tone of the work began to change. Food prompts a slew of emotions. There is too little, or too much. It can induce pleasure or disgust. It can simultaneously bind a community, and serve as a social divide. It’s a link to ancient humans. It’s been employed as a symbolic device throughout history. It’s a life, ending to advance another life. This body of work is populated with monuments to this collective consciousness. There are many altars and many sacrifices. Most of the scenes depicted in her work have indications that productive, maybe intelligent, beings have intervened. Sometimes, the evidence is explicit. Occasionally, it is a subtly placed clue. The beings are absent. Whether they have just stepped out, or whether they have been gone for some time is unknown. There’s something golden about a moment that exists outside the passage of time. There’s a delightful eeriness to a space not quite terrestrial. If such a crystalline state can be depicted visually, Wright hopes to find it.
A PORTRAIT OF DISORDER: NEUROFIBROMATOSIS Portraits have always had a powerful grasp on Mindrup’s imagination. It is the idea of duration – or earthly immortality – that gives such a mysterious interest to the painted portrait. Studying the history of portraiture techniques has allowed her the ability to begin to integrate those concepts into relevant contemporary narratives. Mindrup’s son Henry’s diagnosis has been the motivation behind her series of portraits “Many Faces of Neurofibromatosis (NF)”. Through this series of paintings, she acts as the conduit, transforming genetic complications into something secondary and portraying the individual personalities first. Using social media as a connection, Mindrup hopes to raise funds, educate, and ideally find a cure for NF.
