Melanie Gritzka del Villar

August 4–27, 2017

Retracing Roots/Routes

Gritzka del Villar’s practice is shaped by her ongoing search for harmony out of disparate cultural and environmental elements. This translates into a sensibility towards cast away or overlooked objects as holders of fleeting meaning and of latent possibilities for alternative narratives.

In 2016, Gritzka del Villar attended a month-long artist residency in the city of Puebla, Mexico to explore the evidence of trade routes between Mexico and her home country, the Philippines. For two and a half centuries, Mexico and the Philippines were under Spanish domination. During this period (1565 to 1815), huge vessels would navigate the Pacific, from the port of Acapulco (Mexico) to Manila (the Philippines). The complete trade route transported cargo such as silver, silk, porcelain, and spices, from Seville in Spain to the Mexican port of Veracruz, overland through strategically positioned cities such as Puebla, to the port of Acapulco, on to Manila and back. This colossal enterprise ensured a rich intermingling and assimilation of customs, traditions, language and aesthetics. The works presented in this exhibition show the artist’s reflections on a shared past in relation to the Spanish colonial expansion in the Pacific.

Gritzka del Villar uses found objects, photographs, stories and maps as springboard to transcend historical facts and to delve in the poetic possibilities of events. Driftwood fragments collected on the shores of Philippine islands are juxtaposed with photographic plaster transfers portraying wall textures from the old town of Puebla.

The gel transfers of old maritime maps representing the galleons’ voyage across the Pacific provide a metaphor for the inherent instability of cartography as historical construction. The artist has infused the maps with fictional anecdotes, giving a personal touch to the otherwise anonymous diagrams.

Then there’s the Mexican popular legend of the “China Poblana”. The myth is based on the historical figure of an Asian woman (Indian? Filipina?) called “Mirrha” who was shipped to Mexico c.1620 and baptised as “Catarina de San Juan”. She lived in Puebla as a servant and gradually morphed into the popular symbol of Mexican femininity as “La China Poblana” in the 20th century. By reenacting the myth using her own choice of characters, Gritzka del Villar expands on existing popular narratives and stereotypes and hints at the constant evolution of cultural constructs.

Through her exhibition “Retracing Roots/Routes” Gritzka del Villar renders a divergent, more personal perspective on the era of the Spanish Galleon trade, allowing her to reimagine her own identity which surges between Europe, Mexico and the Philippines.

Melanie Gritzka del Villar—born 1982 of German-Philippine parents – has lived, worked and studied in Germany, Spain, England, Thailand, and the Philippines. She holds a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Staffordshire University, UK, as well as an MA in Art History from The Open University, UK. Gritzka del Villar has exhibited in numerous venues internationally. She is currently based in Washington, D.C.

www.gritzkadelvillar.com

August 4–27, 2017

Juried by Mary Early

There should be no dividing line between artistic excellence and social consciousness.
— Joseph W. Polisi, president of Juilliard, The Artist as Citizen

CREATE/CHANGE presents the work of seventeen artists from 17 cities around the United States. The call for submissions to this juried exhibition invited artists living and working in the United States to consider their role as “Artist/Citizen” and examine the intersection of personal artistic practice with the broader world beyond the studio.

As we find ourselves immersed in the steadily increasing volume of visual and auditory media, it is a daily challenge to see past a flood of images and ideas. The artist has always served society by communicating where words and actions fail and is now doubly challenged to be seen and heard above the fray.

The artists of CREATE/CHANGE reveal the importance of seeing into and opening up, rather than passing through, society. A shift away from hierarchical career choice of past centuries has created an ever-widening platform for the application of creative processes across disciplines.

Mary Early, July 2017

SELECTED ARTISTS:
Sobia Ahmad (MD)
Kamal Al Mansour (CA)
Gary Duehr (MA)
Jimmy Fike (AZ)
Jonathan Clyde Frey (PA)
Michal Gavish (DC)
Kay Gordon (NY)
Mia Halton (MD)
Katie Hargrave (TN)
Linda Hesh (VA)
Cathy Immordino (CA)
Andrea Limauro (MD)
Diane N’Diaye (MD)
Lauren Peterson (GA)
Paul Shortt (DC)
Ann Stoddard (MD)
Caitlin Vitalo (PA)

www.sobiaahmad.com
www.artgriot.com
www.garyduehr.com
www.miahalton.com
www.lindahesh.com
www.cathyimmordino.com
www.andrealimauro.com/
www.laurenmichellepeterson.com
paulshortt.com
www.annstoddard.net
www.caitlinvitalo.com

July 7–30, 2017

Mobius Waves

Mobius strip n. A surface with only one side, and one boundary
Wave n. a disturbance that travels through a medium

Gloria Duan’s “Mobius Waves” was created using large cyanotypes on fabric sewn together to construct a sculptural environment so the visitor feels as if they are traversing through a wave itself. Duan creates the work by hand painting large swaths of fabric with the blue photo-chemical cyanotype, then places transparent objects such as hand-blown glass and clear plastics on top of the fabric. The transparency of these mediums allows sunlight to reach through each object to permanently create abstract images onto the fabric.

This series aims to semantically describe mutable and ephemeral subjects, phenomena, and materials, through their unguessed synchronicities. Topics include waves, water, wind, shadow, light, glass, pure energy, floating, suspension, and universal expansion. Through Duan’s process, the materiality of the objects is contained and becomes indexed within a photographic afterimage. Exploring the catalytic effects of light and heat, the cyanotype process visualizes the dynamism and fluidity of the chemical reactions and thermal energies that form each medium.

Gloria (b. 1993, Massachusetts) is an Asian-American artist currently living in the Washington, D.C. metro area. She received her BFA in 2015 from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her practice is involved in the poetics between art and science culture, from exploring the similarities of a minimalist process and the scientific method, to visualizing the unseen, augmenting space platforms for art-viewing, and creating perceptual intersections that challenge the use of labor and technologies, as and through an art-form.

www.gloriafanduan.com

July 7–30, 2017

Vessel

Abstracting and distorting elements of the body, Jessica Burnam creates sculptures and drawings that explore themes of metamorphosis and re-emergence, growth and decay, natural systems and fantastic abnormalities. She builds bizarre environments and dreamscapes for these bodies to dwell, creating unexpected juxtapositions between the ancient and the futuristic, the biomorphic and the artificial, the familiar and the ambiguous. To heighten these contrasts, she employs a wide range of industrial, found, and organic materials in her work. She is fascinated by science fiction, the symbolism of boats and of ladders, and by all manner of small and significant things: seeds and rocks,test tubes and pottery shards, cold glass and little buds that bristle.

This exhibition features the sculpture of “Vessel,” accompanied by “Anomaly Drawings + Etchings.” “Vessel” is a hybrid of many elements, simultaneously referencing boats and spacecraft, rock formations and cathedral-like interiors. Within and surrounding the vessel, abstracted bodies or “passengers” occupy its berths and naves, reefs and crannies. The vehicle is itself an entity, an oversized organ, a community. Done in India ink and in drypoint, “Anomaly Drawings + Etchings” reference abstracted bodily systems, ecosystems, and astronomical systems in balance and in deviation.

Jessica Burnam received her BA from the University of Virginia in 2015 and was the recipient of the Aunspaugh Post-Baccalaureate Fine Art Fellowship at the University of Virginia (2015-16). She was an Artist-in-Residence at Anderson Ranch (fall 2016) and currently holds a studio practice in Mount Rainier, MD.

July 7–30, 2017

Like Any Other

Julia Kwon’s work comments on gender and ethnicity. It explores different ways for creating ruptures on Korean patterns.She activates the paintings in relation to the stretcher bars, which become metaphors for framing and societal expectations for the authentic. She also creates figures inside enlarged Korean object-wrapping cloth and lucky pouch to express the embodied experience and both the seriousness and ridiculousness of objectification. However, the fabrics are not only covering, blocking and suffocating, but also protecting, hiding, and mystifying the body.

The textiles Kwon creates symbolize constructed notions of what it means to be Korean. Her work is not simply a representation of minority identities, but rather a commentary on the dehumanizing, problematic process of being identified, reduced and categorized. By employing object-wrapping cloth that was historically a creative outlet for Korean women who had limited contact with the outside world, she considers ideas such as tradition, labor, craft, and “feminine” work. Furthermore, the human-scale box painting that combines traditional Korean textile with contemporary, global logos considers both the past and the present to further investigate the idea of authenticity as well as cultural hybridity and transnationalism.

By meticulously creating Korean textiles through painting and sewing, Kwon cherishes her cultural background. However, through imposing various disruptions and overburdening the textiles with “ethnic” patterns, she not only conveys her experience of being objectified and judged superficially, but also exposes and undercuts the very preconceptions others may have based on her gender and ethnicity.

Julia Kwon was born in Northern Virginia and earned her M.F.A. at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University and her B.A. in Studio Art at Georgetown University. She has been actively exhibiting her work and won various awards such as the artist residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Vermont Studio Center, Textile Arts Center, and Gallery 263.

www.juliakwon.com