Jeff Brouws at Djanogly Art Gallery, University of Nottingham

And Now it's Dark: American Night Photography
Djanogly Art Gallery
Lakeside Arts Centre, University Park, Nottingham
September 6 - November 9, 2014

For the first time in the UK, And Now it's Dark showcases the work of three leading American photographers—Jeff Brouws, Todd Hido and Will Steacy—who all make images at night.

On peripatetic road journeys through the US, Jeff Brouws captures the glow of headlamps and neon—the illuminated attractions and distractions of the American roadside that give a troubling picture of commercial encroachment on the landscape.

Read more about the exhibition here.

Mary Mattingly at The Brooklyn Museum

Crossing Brooklyn: Art from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Beyond
Brooklyn Museum
Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing and Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery, 5th Floor
October 3, 2014 - January 4, 2015

Reflecting the rich creative diversity of Brooklyn, Crossing Brooklyn presents work by thirty-five Brooklyn-based artists or collectives. The exhibition and related programming take place in the galleries and on the grounds of the Museum, as well as off-site in the streets, waterways, and other public spaces of the borough.

Emphasizing artistic practices that engage with the world, the exhibition includes artists who aim to expand their focus and have an impact beyond the studio and the museum. The resulting work defies easy categorization, taking on diverse forms that include public and private action, the use of found or collected objects, and interactive and educational events, among others. Alongside the drawings, paintings, photographs, sculptures, installations, videos, and performances on view are several site-specific works.

While acknowledging Brooklyn's heightened profile, Crossing Brooklyn presents a multigenerational picture that recognizes the borough's long-established role as a creative center. Other themes explored in the exhibition include history and memory, place and geography, community, nostalgia, exchange, ephemerality, and politics, both local and remote.

Read more about the exhibition here.

New Series by Paulette Taormina

Robert Mann Gallery is excited to announce a new series by Paulette Tavormina, Bodegón. Meaning "from the pantry," Bodegón is inspired by the paintings of 18th-century Spanish still life painter Luis Meléndez. Featuring the elegant everyday cookware of the rustic kitchen, these new works by Tavormina bring the artist's signature gift for rich simplicity to a new cornucopia of fruits, vegetables, breads and sweets.

 

Announcing Representation of Cig Harvey

Pomegranate Seeds, Scout, Rockport, Maine, 2012from the series Gardening at Night

Robert Mann Gallery is pleased to announce the representation of Cig Harvey. Enigmatic and atmospheric, Harvey's photographs conjure subtle elements of fantasy through ingenious orchestrations of people, objects, and scenery. Magical realism is abandoned in favor of carefully curated moments of real-world magic: with clever cropping, inspired composition and vivid color, mirrors become moons and dreamers appear to climb white-washed stairs into the clouds. Yet in her visual stories, the extraordinary lies exactly in the absence of true unfamiliarity. We look again and pomegranate seeds on a wooden table are just pomegranate seeds on a wooden table. As in our own lives, wonder is only in the ability to see the world wonderfully.

Cig Harvey's work is included in permanent collections of major institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine; and the International Museum of Photography and Film at the George Eastman House, Rochester, New York. Her first monograph, You Look At Me Like An Emergency (Schilt Publishing, 2012) sold out in all printings and was accompanied by a solo museum show at the Stenersen Museum in Oslo, Norway in spring 2012. Her newest series, Gardening at Night, will be released as a monograph in Spring 2015. The artist lives and works in rural Maine.

WetLand by Mary Mattingly in Philadelphia

Mary Mattingly's latest outdoor installation project, WetLand, is now on view along the Delaware River at Columbus Boulevard in Philadelphia. This temporary, sustainable habitat uses solar distillation to purify Philadelphia river water that, with the input of the Philadelphia Water Department and Delaware River Port Authority, is used by Mattingly for the duration of the installation. The project is accompanied by activities such as music events, urban farming seminars, and yoga sessions.

WetLand is supported by FringeArts, the Knight Foundation, the Seaport Museum, DRWC, PWD, Skidmutro, the City of Philadelphia, and others, and open through September 21, 10am-5pm at Independence Seaport Museum Pier, 211 S. Columbus Blvd., at Dock Street. For more information, click here.

The Embroidered Image reviewed in Knotwe

Hagar Vardimon: Climbing, 2012

Hagar Vardimon: Climbing, 2012

This week a show that lit the New York skyline in the fibers world will be closing this Friday, August 15th. We hope it is one of many more to come that showcase the diverse range of contemporary artists who have emboldened not only the embroidery world's imagination but represent a, dare we say it, movement, well afoot of contemporary artists utilizing the conceptual strengths and mark making splendor of embroidery on photo images. The show's curator Orly Cogan selected an international brew of artists who are each working and drawing the thread through images in their own distinct way. The exhibition at the Robert Mann Gallery is well worth the visit for multiple reasons including sheer inspiration. There are pieces in the show that are cleverly mounted such as the works of Mathew Cox and Pinky/MM Bass who both touch on the biological image as backdrop for their technical feats of embroidery goodness. Artists Flore Gardner, Melissa Zexter and Jose Romussi create stunning works that use pattern as an overlay that Photoshop can never compete with however adept it is at hyper-aestheticizing the image. And speaking of the pixelated subject, the work of Diane Meyer terrifically disperses stitch like a blanket of blurred memory or identity obscured by anonymity.

To continue reading the article and short interviews with several Embroidered Image artists, click here.