CINCINNATI, OH.- Carl Solway Gallery presents three solo exhibitions by artists who engage in fresh approaches to established traditions in architecture, ceramics and textiles. Working in very different mediums, each artist profoundly interprets observations of the natural world and the culture we live in. All three artists currently reside in Ohio.
CATHERINE RICHARDS
Catherine Elizabeth Richards is an architect and visual artist. Her work expands the understanding of architecture at different scales; from discrete objects, sculpture and installations to city-wide interventions. Richards works between mediums, exploring architecture and perception with materials, experimental photography and video.
Her installation for Carl Solway Gallery, Capricious Alignment, features immersive textile prints and polychrome aluminum sculptures. In her words, ”Order, decoration, and color create a dynamic psychology of space. The viewer’s perceptual experience is heightened by the sequential nature of both the tapestries and open grid structures. The juxtaposition of repeating floral environments alongside minimalist sculpture opens a dialogue between notions of order and chaos. Boundaries between exterior and interior are rendered fluid and playful.”
The sculpture Valance, on view in the gallery’s lobby, draws upon the history of glass architecture. This lighted glass sculpture incorporates plant patterns etched directly into the surface. The viewer’s reflection merges with the transparent structure, itself a meditation on inside and outside. Her family’s farm in Michigan, a historic site where botanists developed hybrid species of apples and cherries, is largely responsible for her plant-based references. Valance was first shown in 2014 at ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Richards’s solo exhibition, Coral City, was on view in the UnMuseum at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati from 2015 to 2017. Her “place making” initiatives in Cincinnati include Future Blooms and Modern Makers. In the past Richards worked in exhibition design and architecture in London and New York, at OMA, RE X architects and Metaphor Unlimited. She participated in teams designing the Wyley Theatre in Dallas and Museum Plaza Skyscraper in Louisville, and museum exhibitions for the Victoria and Albert Museum London, and the Guggenheim Bilbao. Richards holds Master of Architecture and Bachelor of Science degrees in Architecture from the University of Cincinnati, College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning where she now teaches. She is a co-founder of the art collective Hark + Hark, with Anh Tran. Hark + Hark created an installation for Marchon Eyewear in New York City, that traveled to Paris, London, Berlin and Tokyo in 2016 and is now in the company’s permanent collection.
EVA KWONG
Eva Kwong’s exhibition of ceramics will include free-standing sculpture and sculptural wall installations made from many elements referencing biological sources such as bacteria, diatoms and cells. Smaller pieces reflect her personal interpretation of the traditional vase form. Working in the very different material of clay, Kwong shares with Richards a philosophical connection to the union of opposites.
Her title, Love Between the Atoms, refers to the attraction between the protons and the electrons in an atom. In her words, “I see this attractive force as something that bonds us all together in this world. It is this attractive force which forms bonds at the subatomic level that makes things work in the physical world that we experience. It is this attractive force that enables us to build forms with clay and to draw people together and build relationships with each other. In many ways, mutual attraction of one form or another is what enables us to connect and create interactions on microcosmic as well as macrocosmic levels, from the physical to the emotional.
I am interested in the interconnection of the myriad of layers in the world, from microcosm to macrocosm. Maybe it is because I grew up with both eastern and western cultures. I was brought up with the traditional Chinese concept of yin and yang that underlies all life forms and energies. Growing up in Hong Kong and New York, I learned to look at everything through the lens of both cultures.
This interest of opposite ways of perception, the intertwining of dualities has informed all my work for several decades since I was student. I am interested in the juxtaposition of mass/space, land/air, solid/hollow, male and female forms. I feel I am a hybrid hovering between opposites.”
Eva Kwong’s work is included in numerous collections internationally including the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; the Cleveland Clinic, the Cranbrook Museum of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; Finnish Craft Museum, Helsinki, Finland; Janet Mansfield Collection, Mansfield Ceramics, Gulgong, Australia; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota; Shigaraki Park Ceramic Museum, Shigaraki, Japan and Fule International Ceramic Art Museums, Fuping, China. Her awards include five fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council and two fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. She is currently participating in a 2017 McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis.
Kwong has exhibited widely since 1975. Her numerous residencies, workshops and curatorial projects reflect the deep respect she commands within the ceramics field. She has held many teaching positions including Head of Ceramics at the University of Akron and Kent State University.
Kwong received an MFA in Ceramics and Drawing from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University in 1977 and a BFA in Ceramics and Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1975.
HILDUR ÁSGEIRSDÓTTIR JÓNSSON
References to the macrocosms and microcosms of the natural world also abound in the woven paintings of Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson. Painting on silk threads in a process related to ikat, her imagery is loosely based on landscape photographs of her native Iceland. The source images are often close-up images of lichen, but they also abstractly allude to larger swaths of land and sky. By painting with industrial dyes on the detached warp (vertical) threads of her works, attaching these dyed threads to a large-scale loom and weaving in the weft (horizontal) threads, she creates slightly off register, shimmering woven paintings that suggest expansive space rather than any literal sense of place.
Jonsson has received numerous grants, commissions and awards including The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation 2015 Award, the Cleveland Art Prize in 2008, four fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council and a public commission from the Hilton Hotel Convention Center, Cleveland in 2016. Her work is included in many collections such as The Cleveland Art Museum, Reykjavik Art Museum, Akron Art Museum, Progressive Insurance Collection and Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Solo shows include Tibor De Nagy Gallery, New York; TANG Museum, Saratoga, New York; Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland; and MOCA Cleveland. She was also included in the 2015 group exhibition, Pretty Raw: After and Around Helen Frankenthaler at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson was born in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1963 and still maintains a home there. She resides in Cleveland, Ohio for much of the year and makes annual visits to Iceland to gather more source material for her paintings. She received MFA and BFA degrees from Kent State University in 1995 and 1991 respectively. She earlier studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art and the architecture program of Kent State University.
