artists are on display at the
Marion Art Gallery.
Bethany Clancy/
Staff Photographer)
MELISSA FUCHS
Special to the Leader
Saturday evening saw the opening reception for the latest exhibit at Fredonia’s Cathy and Jesse Marion Art Gallery with Knowing Paper: Five Contemporary Artists Using Paper as their Expressive Medium. The exhibit, curated by visual arts professor Timothy Frerichs, features the works from artists Tom Balbo, Aimee Lee, Bridget O’Malley, Radha Pandey and Peter Sowiski.
Frerichs said that his hope is to display a diverse selection of the differing techniques utilized by artists who work with paper, as shown by the five artists and their works displayed in the exhibit.
“The five artists invited for this exhibition are some of the most respected artists who are also papermakers in the U.S.,” Frerichs said.
Frerichs had the privilege of being introduced to these five artists before the opening reception, becoming familiar with them and their work.
“Furthermore, they all engage the medium utilizing differing techniques and approaches to communicate their concepts . . . included in the exhibition are delicate watermarked kozo sheets, traditionally Korean handwoven paper ducks, dresses, stop-action animation, large scale pulp painting and sculptural pulp casting and intimate artist books,” he said.
Aimee Lee, one of the artists showcased in the exhibit, explained the process of working with paper as an art medium. Lee begins by deciding whether to use premade paper, or to take a more “homemade” approach. This approach involves cutting down the plant, harvesting and extracting the plant’s usable parts.
“So you have acid-free paper and then you have to clean it, you have to beat it into a pulp, you have to add it to water and then sieve it through over a screen, and I do a mostly traditional Korean-style papermaking so it’s a very specific way of moving a kind of . . . a certain kind of screen through the water [and then] there’s a whole pressing and parting and drying process and then once you have the paper [you] can do something with that,” she said.
Lee also described the process for her paper ducks that are on display at the exhibit.
“For the ducks I have to cut all the paper into strips and then turn the strips into rope, and then I have to do weaving, which is basketry . . . then I have to weave some of the rope [by un-plying] two-ply rope, and then I take one-ply [and twine it] around two-ply rope and I make these hollow structures so there’s no armature or anything, I just build it as I go,” she said.
For Lee, the inspiration of her ducks comes from the Korean tradition of wedding ducks, which were carved wooden ducks given as gifts that were painted to resemble Mandarin ducks known to mate for life as a way to encourage marital fidelity and fertility. Lee first was inspired to challenge herself after seeing a woven paper duck in a museum catalogue, as she found the duck’s shape and its medium of paper compelling.
Although Lee finds inspiration from Korean and Western-style garments, she often finds creativity in other places.
“Sometimes it’s like any kind of fashion design, you see something that’s interesting, you try to replicate it . . . a framer who had hung a show of mine last year said, ‘oh I saw this still from an Elvis movie’ and he showed it to me and it was a woman wearing, like, a very 60s jacket [with] very geometric shapes and I just wanted to kind of, not replicate it exactly, but play with that idea,” she said.
Both Lee and Frerichs hope those who visit the exhibit consider the diverse applications of paper as demonstrated in the pieces on display.
“These are all very important, but we also take it for granted, especially because of the inexpensive nature of that paper . . . I hope viewers get a glimpse of the history, tradition, sustainability and versatility of this fibrous medium,” Frerichs said.
For those who are interested in checking out the Knowing Paper exhibit, rest assured knowing you don’t have to be an art expert in papermaking to grasp the pieces of the artists featured.
“This opening specifically is really easy to understand, [there’s no hidden art theory] behind all the pieces, it’s all about [the] visual impact and color and texture and how they relate. So it’s like a really broad show for anybody without an art background — you don’t have to be an artist to understand this art,” said Leanna Harp, an art history and ceramics double major.
The Cathy and Jesse Marion Art Gallery is open Tuesday through Thursday from noon until 4 p.m., Friday and Saturday from noon to 6 p.m. and Sunday between noon to 4 p.m. The Knowing Paper: Five Contemporary Artists Using Paper as their Expressive Medium runs from March 2 until April 8.
There will also be a workshop with one of the artists, Peter Sowiski, on March 21 from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in Room 231 in Rockefeller Arts Center. Space is limited for the workshop, but if you are interested in reserving a spot for the workshop, you can email Frerichs at timothy.frerichs@fredonia.edu.