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Press Releases | |
August 29, 2003
Reading In Color: Sculptural Forms by Susanna Starr at Avram GalleryContact:
Patricia Conway
(631) 287 8313
Fax: (631) 287-8054Artist Talk and Reception Slated For Thursday, September18
Southampton, NY — Southampton College’s Avram Gallery will feature the works of Susanna Starr in a show entitled "Reading In Color." The show will run through Friday September 26.
Starr, who received her MFA from the Yale School of Art, is exploring the relationship between paint and its environment. In her work she uses sponges, a non-traditional art material, and acrylics to create paint-saturated, textured, freestanding sculptures. While the process seems simple and direct, and her use of materials are predetermined, her pieces become more complex, and unpredictable, as the materials naturally process themselves - the sponges sag and the paint seeps over time. Starr experiments with the porosity of her sponges, the viscosity of her paints and the balance of weight within the finished form.
Her exhibit at Avram is a self-described layering of ideas giving color physical form, creating unexpected relationships by absorbing painting into sculpture and sculpture into painting. The pieces in this show are predominantly made from layers of synthetic sponge and acrylic paint. By soaking the sponges with color she aims to suspend and contain the color in space.
"The stacked pieces in the center of the Gallery create an organic narrative that describes a group of individuals," said Starr of her installation at Avram. "After I soaked the slabs of color I printed them onto the two large sheets of hanging paper, layering the signature of each. Through multiple overprinting, the dimensionality of the original color stacks so drastically changed that the elements recombined into a new condensed form." Her finished works are paintings as well as sculptures, the result of natural relationships determined by laws of physics, offering an honest insight into the artistic process filled with color, wit and wisdom.
Starr has exhibited at many galleries throughout the country, including solo shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Fort Collins, Colo. and the Cynthia Broan Gallery in New York City. Her works have also been shown at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, NY, the Art and Architecture Gallery at the Yale School of Art, and the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, ME. She recently spent a month as a resident of the Edward F. Albee Foundation’s William Flanagan Memorial Creative Persons Center in Montauk, concentrating all thirty days on the development of some current work.
An artist reception will be held on Thursday, September 18 from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. with an artist talk at 5:00 p.m. The gallery is open weekdays from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. or by appointment. Call Director Beth Giles for more information (631) 287-8234.