Wild Nature
Wild Nature
MAY 4, 2012 THROUGH JUNE 30, 2012
PHILADELPHIA- In the main gallery space, Wexler Gallery is proud to present WILD Nature, a group show exploring themes relating to the natural world, the human condition, and the idea of the sublime. Featured artists will include Christy Langer, Julie Anne Mann, Andy Paiko, and Jennifer Trask. Curated by Wexler Gallery Director Sienna Freeman. The exhibition will run from May 4 – June 30, 2012. An opening reception will take place on First Friday, May 4th from 5 – 8pm.
WILD Nature will investigate the awe-inspiring and sometimes terrifying qualities of nature, a topic widely explored by artists and writers during the Romantic period in Europe. Using a variety of mediums and techniques, featured artists will explore the exotic worlds of flora and fauna from an allegorical approach, often drawing from personal experiences, memories, and dreams. The show will also consider connections between the human subconscious and the wilderness of the physical world.
Canadian artist Christy Langer works with animal imagery to “illustrate the disparity between reality and remembered experience.” Best known for her hauntingly life-like and emotional sculptures of various creatures, the artist explores boundaries between reality and falsity, beauty and the grotesque. Langer’s mixed media sculptures are made using materials such as porcelain, resin, epoxy, and paint. The artist has also recently begun a series of drawings on stretched animal skin, which will debut during the exhibition.
Langer earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from the Ontario College of Art and Design. Her work has exhibited at galleries and art fairs across the US and Canada. Langer has also been the two time recipient of both the Ontario Arts Council Visual Arts Emerging Artist Grant and Toronto Arts Council Visual Arts Emerging Artist Grant. She presently lives and works in Toronto, Canada.
Born and raised on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, Julie Anne Mann grew up in a secluded, heavily forested region where nature was a focal point in the artist’s early life. Seeking to “develop and refine a perception that explores the link between man and nature,” Mann creates both two and three dimensional pieces that investigate the darker side of the natural world and its connection to human nature. In her Forest Portrait series, Mann uses silver leaf to draw anthropomorphic tree forms on the surface of large cross-sections of burl wood. Much like traditional portraiture, these images capture a moment in time that reveals each subjects unique character, while “suggesting an individual and collective narrative for the viewer to unravel.”
Mann earned a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York NY. Her work has been exhibited both locally and internationally in New York, Los Angeles, Puerto Rico and Mexico. She has also received a number of awards including a grant from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. The artist currently lives and works in upstate New York.
Andy Paiko is a glass blower who is interested in making functional objects that both communicate and imitate purpose. Well known for his antiquarian style glass bell jars containing found natural objects and obscure artifacts, his pieces investigate a symbolic way of dealing with the form/function relationship. According to the artist, “each piece could be metaphorical; it could comment on the difficulty of decision making in everyday life, the relationship of society with nature or language, or the way the mind grasps experience through dreams.”
