Eclectic Chord
March 28 - May 18, 2024
Featured Artists
About the Show
Featured
Surrender your whole being to a note, and gravity disappears... with one chord. - Carlos Santana
A chord is a combination of three or more notes that form the basis of a harmony. In curating this show, we chose the work of three artists that creates a visual chord — pieces, which, on their own, form individual notes, but, put together, create a harmony. The swirls and organic forms of Gail Rickards flow into the lyrical brushstrokes of David Little with Jackie Brown’s intricate cut-outs providing depth and textrure. These three bodies of work resonate beautifully, with each unique vibration contributing to a cohesive whole.
Artists’ Statements
Jackie Brown: At the heart of my work is a love of materiality, a fascination with living systems, and an ongoing curiosity about what it means to be alive. Each work in this series is an accumulation of cut and layered sheets of paper and through this approach I aim to suggest an underlying depth and structure to the way things grow, move, and expand on a microscopic level. The act of cutting through paper is a way of revealing what lies beneath the surface and with each work, I hope to suggest that there is more to discover, that there are still layers beyond our grasp, and that there is limitless potential for growth and transformation in the world around us.
David Little: In March 2020, when the pandemic lockdown closed my coffee group meetings and most social events, feelings of complacency laced with procrastination had me wondering how this crisis would affect the creative juices. Late that month I came across a New York Times article “Readers’ Ideas for Finding Cheer at Home” that struck a chord! The Times asked readers “to share their ideas for pursuing the traveler’s spirit of discovery, curiosity, and delight within their new limitations of home.”
The Times article triggered a vague longing to look back and see if I could pick up where I had left off—in 1989! This “reset” helped fill the vacuum created by the pandemic and kick start a review of my earlier style (think Miró, Kandinsky, Klee, Ernst, Arp, Tanguy, De Chirico), to return to my first love, something I had dreamed and hoped might someday happen! The works in this show represent some of the fruits of that journey from the past to the present.
Gail Rickards: My work explores my daily landscape and is grounded in the experience of rural living in New England.
These collage paintings are process intensive. I combine painting and collage methods to explore the personal, internal terrain of daily life as well as the external landscape around me. Paint is poured and manipulated on craft paper and graph paper, as well as grass-patterned scrapbook paper. The spills and flows are meticulously cut out, edged, and collaged; a time-consuming and meditative process I find extremely satisfying. The interplay between the tedious cutting and collaging and the meandering gestural lines of poured paint mingles efforts in opposition. I’m drawn to these dichotomous forces and use a combination of working methods to explore the turmoil and structure in our internal and external spaces. Repetition, grids, boundaries, and humor are all frequent components of my work as I attempt to make sense of the chaos in our fragile environment.
Preview the Exhibition
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