By Cresta Lewis
The Contemporary Arts Center opens two new imaginative exhibitions on Friday, April 22. Opening party is 8 p.m. Both run through August 14.
Matt Kish & Robert Del Tredici: ‘Chasing the Whale, and Other Endless Pursuits’
This exhibition features two artists who imagine the details, detours and interpretations of iconic novels with serial drawings.
A Dayton, Ohio-based librarian and illustrator, Matt Kish is a self-taught artist who has turned the daily act of drawing into a vehicle for documenting his life and experiences.
Robert Del Tredici is a graphic artist, photographer and teacher who gave up his early studies in the seminary to become a dedicated anti-nuclear activist.
These artists do not work together but are brought together by the tenacious illustrations of Herman Melville’s iconic 1851 novel “Moby Dick.” They have turned this classic tale of revenge and rediscovery into numerous drawings and prints. The artists also have visualized scenes from Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and Italo Calvino’s “Invisible Cities.”
‘Unraveled: Textiles Reconsidered’
The “Unraveled: Textiles Reconsidered” exhibition is all about reinvention. In this show, the artists take everyday items and turn them into imaginative works of art.
The inventive pieces feature magazines, clothing, rugs, bed sheets and blankets that are deconstructed and rebuilt into new creations. The artists have chosen these ordinary textiles to cut then sew, fold then stack, unravel then reshape, print on, embroider and weave fabric together, and given us unique, contemporary pieces of art.
Some of the works you will see include:
- Icelandic artist Hildur Bjarnadottir’s single ball of thread made from her grandmother’s unraveled trousers
- Mexican-American artist Adrian Esparza’s hard-edged abstract wall drawings created by unwinding cheap, acrylic Mexican blankets into single threads
- Ying Kit Chan’s abstractions of Chinese characters crafted from cut and torn bed sheets masked in black gesso
The exhibition also features the works of mixed-media artist Noel Anderson, American textile artist Lisa Anne Auerbach, Mexican-American artist Margarita Cabrera, painter Mark R. Smith, fiber artist Kari Steihaug and contemporary American artist Marie Watt.
contemporaryartscenter.org or 345-8400