ConTEXT
April 22- May 27, 2005
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ConTEXT
(April 22-May 27) features the work of four artists: Joyce
Keener, Launa Romoff, Margaret
Rutherford, and Libby Wadsworth, who incorporate
text in their artwork in different ways. Margaret Rutherford has created
a narrative, I Grew Up With the Dead, made up of framed prints and poetry,
chronicling her experience growing up as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor.
Joyce Keener combines photographs and text in collage form. Launa Romoff
incorporates found objects in her work. Libby Wadsworth presents familiar
words in unfamiliar ways. Through their various styles, each of these
artists explore how text and image are both languages of description and
representation.
We hope you will be able to stop by to see this exciting exhibit and to participate in some of the many events that are happening in conjunction with the exhibit.
After studying painting, printmaking and sculpture, Joyce Keener spent her working life from 1968 – 1994 writing film and television scripts and magazine editorials. Now, devoting herself to graphic media to create “talking pictures,” she uses “high tech gear to invent composite images.” She carries her camera everywhere and “gathers images as diarists do journaling,” sometimes scanning the resulting photographs for collaging with the “alphabetic palette” she has retained from her writing days. She says: “The resulting compositions are frequently complex and narrative as a storyboard. Simpler pieces celebrate a single moment, recording that sudden intake of breath which provokes yet another train of conceptions.”
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For Eugene artist Libby Wadsworth, text and image are both languages of description and representation. In her latest paintings, Wadsworth combines lushly rendered still life imagery with words broken into sub-words, the composition of the text echoing that of the imagery. The artist presents familiar words in an unfamiliar way and so encourages viewers to think about why they are there and how they function. Wadsworth is represented by the Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland.
Margaret Rutherford from I Grew up with the Dead
absorb this unbearable story.”
The photographs are borrowed images from the war, which Rutherford has photographed, scanned, and uses as a visual commentary on her retelling. They are “the images [she] absorbed as a child as [she] learned and recognized what had happened to [her] mother and her family.”
This powerful installation
will close one week earlier
than the rest of the exhibit – May 20 – due to Rutherford’s
exhibition scheduling.
Events
Maude Kerns Art Center presents a series of educational programming in conjunction with each exhibit including tours, lectures and art activities.
Call
the Art Center at: 541-345-1571 or e-mail: staff@mkartcenter.org
for more information or to
sign up for a tour today.
conTEXT
Artist Presentation
Thursday, April 28 7-8:30 pm
Libby Wadsworth will present a slide show and speak about her work in
conTEXT.
Yom Hashoah:
Holocaust Remembrance Day
Thursday May 5
At 10 am at the Art Center's bell will ring to join others around the
country as a reminder to stop and stand in remembrance of the tragedy
of the Holocaust. Come to the Art Center to see Margaret Rutherford's
work I Grew Up With the Dead, and create your own square for
a wall of remembrance.
conTEXT
Saturday Workshop
Saturday, May 21 10am-12pm
Come to the Art Center for a tour of the exhibit conTEXT. After
the tour, participants will explore the themes of the exhibit by creating
their own artwork using images and text. Non-Members: $5 (includes tour
and materials) Members: Free
Tours of conTEXT
May 16 – May 27
Please call to schedule a tour.
Web Resources
Some additional online resources about the artists and artwork featured in ConTEXT.
http://www.elizabethleach.com/Artist-Detail.cfm?ArtistsID=67
Survey works
of Libby Wadsworth from the Elizabeth Leach Gallery.
http://www.zollaliebermangallery.com/wadsworth.html
Investigate
Wadsworth's work through previous exhibit accolades and a gallery of several
works.
http://www.annereedgallery.com/artist/wadsworth_l/statement.html
Check out Wadsworth's artist statement and selected works.
http://www.limestonestudio.com/ArtistStatement.html
Learn about how Joyce Keener came to mix text and image.
http://www.limestonestudio.com/NewWork.html
View Keener's works, peruse her exhibit schedule, learn her artistic influences.
http://www.launa-d-romoff.com/worldofart.htm
View Launa Romoff's selected works and bio.
http://www.launa-d-romoff.com/exhibts.htm
Explore Romoff's biography, a detailed list of exhibits, and a comprehensive
gallery of the her work.
Student Responses
The Art Center features tours by trained Gallery Guides for each exhibit. After an initial discussion about the theme of the exhibit and some examples of how to look at artwork using Visual Thinking Strategies, students were asked to reflect on the way the text and images are used as descriptions in the artists' work. These are original responses and observations of students from Cottage Grove High School.
"She uses the text as away to poetically tell her story, and the story of her mother. You can tell there is a lot of pain and suffering in the artwork that is being expressed through her pictures and her words."
"It seems like she writes something of her feelings and then she draws something sad about it. It was her feelings during the holocaust that she wrote and did artwork on. She retakes images and poems and then rephrases them.""Poetry. Repeating. Images are like haunting memories that she can’t forget."
Joyce Keener
The Fire Element "There is a flower representing fire and the background is also representing fire in a way. I see a little cage house thing that looks similar to a fireplace."
"There is a flower representing fire. The background is also representing fire because it has a yellow color to it."
The Wood Element "We need wood. It gives us paper. We need it to build a house. But at the same time we need trees to live. I see a pine cone, and princess Diana."
Golgotha "Keener uses the word salvation, which immediately made me think about Jesus Christ because he is our Savior. The picture depicts Christ on a stake because it is a chair that is beaten and ragged looking. Before Jesus died he was tortured. Also, the rest of the text in Keener's artwork notes "Just save me a seat." This reminds me of how Jesus tells the other man beside him on a stake of how he would be saved in Christ. Jesus spoke many times of those that would be seated in Heaven (such as his disciples.)"
Launa Romoff
"Confused, disorganized slapped together like someone jumbled and lost and can't seem to clear their mind, using small bits and pieces to try and find their way."
"It reminds me of the newspapers you see in the park after it rains."
"Ticket from pizzeria, maybe some pieces of jeans, a number, maybe lace or a scarf, light colors, white, light blue. A ticket to an art show or from a piece of art. Old wrinkly looking texture. Some swirls and other randomized words."
Untitled #283 "Collage spanish speaking, cleaning stuff. Showing how the media needs to be cleaned up. Confusion."
Libby Wadsworth
Hermit " I have found that she uses words and deciphers her words into two different syllables. She loves to use the same kind of materials. She also loves to use small words and break down into smaller words."