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Tinsquo's curatorial project, Adjacent To Life, presents Gesture Generations by Sigrid Wendel.
Marisa Malone writes:
Sigrid Wendel’s practice embraces nonlinear paths of discovery, responding intuitively to what emerges rather than imposing a narrative. This series of ceramic sculptures are the confluence of influences, the subconscious, and trust. Guided by the tug of intuition and a desire to build off her previous series, Gestures (a grouping of abstract forms themed around the body's contortion, unfolding, and change), these pieces began to materialize and ultimately take the shape of something deeply familiar to Wendel: that of her mother’s doodles.
Thin slabs of clay curl and drape gingerly against a solid shape, others cut angles more severe and energetically; while not intentionally setting out to echo her mother’s aesthetic form, the fact that this occurred was not altogether surprising. “The word that comes to mind is relief,” says Wendel, “like ‘oh that’s what I’ve been working on this whole time!’ I’m reinterpreting my mom’s unconscious style.” Her mother’s doodles–sketches in the margins, designs in the borders of cards and notes–were impressed on Wendel and have transformed through her.
The transformation continues into the next generation as well, as Wendel was pregnant with her daughter while making this series. These sculptures are a translation, a dialogue between generations (mother and daughter) and mediums (drawing and clay), making visible the unseen imprint we leave on one another.
For Wendel, creating this work has been a testament to “trusting that the process means something, even if it's not precisely clear from the [start], and to trust that whatever I'm making is a product of all the things that are filtering through me.” We can let this serve as an intimation for us as well.
Inspired by what arose while making this series, Wendel and her mother are in the process of collaborating, drawing from her mother’s extensive archive and creating new work together.
- Marisa Malone
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Sigrid “Siggi” Wendel is an artist, teacher, and writer based in Alphabet City. She grew up on the California Delta and in the woodlands of Western Massachusetts before studying politics and visual art at Yale University. She’s passionate about mutual aid activism and co-teaches a Yoga for Climate Justice series at the Sixth Street Community Center on Thursday evenings, open to all. She made the majority of the work in this show (inspired by her mother) while pregnant with her own daughter, Cuinna: her most ambitious creative endeavor to date.
Marisa Malone grew up in the Sierra foothills of Nevada. She studied writing and literature at The Evergreen State College and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her writing has been published in BlazeVox Journal and Selfish Magazine, along with two self-published poetry chapbooks.
Gestures Generations is on view through July 26, 2024 at the Adjacent To Life gallery housed in Ninth Street Espresso (341 E. 10th Street at Ave B, New York City). Artist's reception: Saturday, July 20, 7:30 pm.
Tinsquo's curatorial project, Adjacent To Life, presents Everything Must Go! by Matt Hart.
From the gallery statement:
Matt Hart was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, spending much of his youth and young adulthood engrossed and participating in the vibrant art and music scene of the SF East Bay (Oakland/Berkeley) throughout the late 1980s and into the early double zeros when he relocated to the Chapel Hill/Durham area of North Carolina until 2019. Matt now resides in Boulder County, Colorado where he makes a living tattooing “permanent” pictures on the skin suits of his fellow impermanent human beans.
Between spending years on the road hitchhiking and train hopping around the Americas, Matt went to several community colleges throughout California, eventually attending art school at the California College of the Arts (formerly CCAC) in Oakland and San Francisco on a full printmaking scholarship in the late 1990s, graduating with distinction in the Fall of 2001.
Alongside his fine art career, for decades Matt has happily made flyers, t-shirts, gigposters and record covers for many of his favorite bands throughout the country and abroad. Matt Hart has exhibited works in California, Oregon, Washington, Chicago, Minneapolis, New York and North Carolina and has been a part of several traveling exhibitions throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.
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Everything Must Go! is on view through June 28, 2024 at the Adjacent To Life gallery housed in Ninth Street Espresso (341 E. 10th Street at Ave B, New York City). Opening reception: Saturday, June 1, 7:00 - 9:00.
