MIND THE GAPS
02.07.2014 - 02.28.2014
Before embarking on a journey travelers are prompted by a message to “mind the gap”. That is, to be aware that there is a potentially dangerous area between our step from solid ground to that of a moving system of parts we rely upon to transport us to another place. This gap is a real space wherein a stiletto may slip, pocket change may drop, a cell phone, grocery list, or love letter may disappear. It is just one distance we must mind in the world of objects. What other spaces do we cross both physically and psychologically, in trust they do not widen in mid-step and leave us suspended, or worse–to fall?
Compressing, widening, and reorienting the stuff of the world is what artists can do. Shifting spaces between the real and simulated, the poetic and overly definitive, the humorous and desirous, between missing the point and embracing the beauty in not-knowing. Mel Bochner wrote, “ In a world which is probably not more dehumanized than ever before, awareness of distance is a principal matter in functioning. Between objects are distances, not separations.” While discrete and autonomous objects denote separation, Bochner states that distances imply detachment which requires interdependency and a contextual relationship.
Our inaugural exhibition at SEDIMENT features five artists currently living in Richmond, Virginia. The work of Jon Duff, Paloma Barhaugh-Bordas, Courtney McClellan, David Kenedy, and Ryan Crowley span a variety of mediums and processes. The interludes between their distinctive works become a net of connections that allow for a multiplicity of perspectives on each piece and the exhibition as a whole. We are aware to mind the gaps.
Artist Bios:
Jon Duff was born in Oconomowoc WI and received his BFA from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. He exhibited his sculptures and paintings throughout Minneapolis, including shows at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Minnesota Center for Photography, and the 1419 gallery. In 2012, Duff received his MFA from the Mount Royal School at the Maryland Institute College of Art. While in Baltimore, his work was shown at City Arts, School 33, the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, and the Baltimore Museum of Art as a finalist for the prestigious Walter and Janet Sondheim Award. Duff is a 2011 alum of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and attended the Triangle Artists’ Workshop in 2013. His work has been published in New American Paintings, and he is currently a part of the juried group show, Live Amateurs, at MINT gallery in Atlanta.
Paloma Barhaugh-Bordas is a visual artist living and working in Richmond, VA. Originally from Denver, Colorado, she received a BA in liberal arts from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Her interest in printmaking led to an internship at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California where she became an Artist in Residence and instructor. Before moving to Richmond in August of 2013 to teach at VCU, Paloma was a Dean’s Scholar at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI where she earned an MFA in Printmaking. Her work adapts and appropriates the vernacular of the many regions she’s called home and traces the self-conscious search for cultural roots as a first-generation American.
Courtney McClellan is an artist and writer from Greensboro, N.C. She received her BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2008, and her MFA from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 2013. She has shown nationally and internationally. Currently, she is the Fountainhead Fellow in the Sculpture and Extended Media Department at Virginia Commonwealth University. Much of her practice begins and ends as text. Enacting what critic Claire Bishop calls “uncreative writing,” her intermedia studies result in hybrids: performing objects, objectified text or performative writing. Her work lives in gray areas, tension and a disbelief in absolutes, searching for a morecomplex relationship between work, artist, and viewer.
David Kenedy grew up in Virginia and was raised by parents in the Unification Church, brought to America in the 70’s by Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Photography is his primary medium of choice for visual communication; fluctuating between both fictional and non-fictional subject matter as a means of reporting his own individual human experience. His early introduction to photography came through his first point-and-shoot film camera given to him by his grandmother when he was very young. David has no formal training in visual arts, but rather has spent the last 10 years self-educating. Along with fine art photography, Kenedy works within a range of music and lifestyle editorial and alternative photojournalism. He is based in Richmond, Virginia.
Ryan Crowley was born in 1983 in Boston Massachusetts. He received is B.F.A from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and his M.F.A from Virginia Commonwealth University. He currently lives and works in Richmond Virginia.