Sunset at the Equator, 2005, April Gornik.
Looking Up, Looking Out: at the sky and the stars, at the land and the sea.
An Exhibit of works by Vija Celmins, Ann Chwatsky, April Gornik and John Torreano
Opening Reception Friday, August 17th from 6:00pm to 8:00pm
Exhibit runs through September 16th, 10:00am to 5:00pm
THE SKY IS A VAST STORYBOOK OPEN ABOVE US, but it doesn’t tell the same stories to everyone. For thousands of years, people have looked up and taken from the sky tales that explained some of the amazing things they saw or imagined were there. Through the ancient stories, we learn something about the human mind and with it, something about ourselves. And today, with satellites, probes and moon walks we know so much more. We are all aware of the sky and its unique qualities particular to this area as it reflects the various bodies of water and of its land surfaces.
Artists have long been fascinated by the sky and its solar systems and portrayed their versions of what they “see”. The artists for this exhibit “see” and express very different views of the Universe and its systems that we live with, with the feelings that are there, and with what the universe portends and it feels like to them. Each of these four artists has looked at these concepts in varied ways which we hope will give rein to everyone’s imagination.
Vija Celmins – Vija Celmins is an acclaimed Latvian-American visual artist best known for photo-realistic paintings and drawings of natural environments and phenomena such as the ocean, spider webs, star fields, and rocks. Vija maintains a house and studio in Sag Harbor. Her earlier work included pop sculptures and monochromatic representational paintings. Based in New York City, she has been the subject of over forty solo exhibitions since 1965, and major retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. A catalogue of her work is in process.
Ann Chwatsky - Photographs by Ann have been exhibited widely in galleries and museums throughout the USA and abroad. In addition, her commercial assignments have been published in Newsweek, Newsday, New York Times and many other publications. Her photographs are in many collections as well such as the Forbes Collection, NYC, and the Patagonia Museum of Art, Argentina.
April Gornik - April shows in New York City, where she had been a resident since 1978, and now lives in North Haven, Long Island, NY. She has work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the National Museum of American Art in Washington, DC, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC.
John Torreano – He has works that have been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Gold Dark Matters by John Torreano
Ocean 2000 by Vija Celmins
Solar 2 by Ann Chwatsky