SAN JOSE, CA.- This winter, the ICA galleries have been transformed with three exhibitions that explore the micro and macro through language and text as well as the intertwining of art and science. It’s a Long Story features artworks by Diane Samuels that contain the texts of iconic pieces of literature. The centerpiece of this exhibition is a 47-foot long transcription of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Lorrie Fredette premieres new sculptural work in her installation tender exchanges, creating an environment that references neural networks, tree roots, and microbes. Primordial Soup is a site-specific collaborative installation by artists Tracey Adams and Virginia Folkestad. This immersive multi-media project is inspired by scientific discoveries of microorganisms in marine biology.

Diane Samuels: It’s a Long Story
Main Gallery
November 10, 2018 – February 3, 2019
Diane Samuels uses other people’s words and her own handwriting as her literal and figurative raw material. For It’s a Long Story, Samuels creates monumental works by writing out the texts of entire novels in micro-script. The centerpiece is a hand-transcription of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, written on remnants of archival paper and recycled prints that Samuels has painted over, drawn on and collaged with images pertaining to the text. Each page of the book is represented by a horizontal row of the drawing, starting with “Call me Ishmael” at the top of the work, which measures 47 feet long by 8 feet wide.

Diane Samuels is a visual artist based in Pittsburgh, PA, with studio and public art practices. Samuels’ work has been exhibited at the Andy Warhol Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Mattress Factory Museum, the Leo Baeck Institute, the Center for Book Arts, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, the Contemporary Arts Center of Cincinnati, the Municipal Museum of Art in Gyor, Hungary, and the Czech Museum of Fine Arts, among others. Samuels holds both a BFA and MFA from Carnegie Mellon University, a diploma from the Institute in Arts Administration at Harvard University and has received honorary doctorates from Seton Hill University and Chatham University. She is also co-founder of City of Asylum Pittsburgh, which provides sanctuary to writers in exile.

Lorrie Fredette: tender exchanges
Focus Gallery
November 17, 2018 – February 10, 2019
New York-based artist Lorrie Fredette delights in creating immersive experiences in a variety of arrangements. Her latest body of work, which premieres at the ICA in tender exchanges, stems from her research into neural networks – particularly their structure and means of communicating information. She has made connections between this network and its resemblance to other systems of nature such as tree roots, vascular systems, and microbial and fungal communities that reside in soil. This newest series is manifested in gauze, a fiber with medical connotations, wrapped around sinewy forms that hang from the ceiling at varying heights. Viewers will be enveloped in a sequence of twisting white chains of Giacometti-like threads that they must negotiate throughout the gallery.

Lorrie Fredette creates site-specific installations that examine beauty, harmony and comfort to comprehend the incomprehensible aspects of infection, pandemic and plague. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including solo and group exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe. Exhibition venues include Art Miami, University of Tennessee, Mass MoCA, and Jyväskylä Art Museum in Jyväskylä, Finland. She is the recipient of awards that include MARK 09 and Strategic Opportunity Grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and has participated in residencies at the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts in Ithaca, New York, the Adolf and Virginia Dehn Visiting Artist Program at Loomis Chaffee in Windsor, Connecticut, and the Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York. Fredette holds a BFA in sculpture from the Herron School of Art/Indiana University.

Tracey Adams and Virginia Folkestad: Primordial Soup
Cardinale Project Room
November 17, 2018 – February 3, 2019
Primordial Soup is a collaborative installation by Tracey Adams and Virginia Folkestad. In 2014, artist Tracey Adams discovered the work of Dr. Roger Linington, a professor of chemistry at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. Linington’s Lab collects and studies ocean specimens, evaluating their potential use in drug development and biomedical research. Fascinated with his discoveries, Adams decided to delve into the world of marine microbiology as a source of inspiration for her artistic practice. Adams and sculptor Virginia Folkestad collaborate on a site-specific project for the ICA that explores marine microorganisms and their healing potential.

Tracey Adams is a painter and multimedia artist who is interested in the intersection of art, science, and music. She was originally trained as a musician and completed her master’s degree at the New England Conservatory of Music in 1980; concurrently, she studied painting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Adams has had solo exhibitions at the Monterey Museum of Art, the Fresno Museum of Art, and the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. Adams was recently awarded a 2015 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Adams’ work is included in the collections of the Bakersfield Art Museum, the Crocker Museum, the Hunterdon Art Museum, the Monterey Museum of Art, the Fresno Art Museum, the Tucson Art Museum, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

Virginia Folkestad is a Colorado-based sculptor and installation artist. Her work has been shown in many solo and group exhibitions in Colorado and California. She received a BFA from Metropolitan State College of Denver. For three years she was the Artist-in-Residence at Redline in Denver, Colorado and in 2003 and 1997 she was awarded the Artist Fellowship in Visual Arts from the Colorado Council on the Arts. Her work is included in many public and private collections, including Kaiser Permanente in Denver, Colorado and City of Denver Public Art.