size MATTERS Offers New Perspective at Mobile Museum of Art
On View November 13, 2015 – February 14, 2016
MOBILE, Ala., Oct. 1, 2015 – The eight artists in an upcoming exhibition have taken great care in measuring the scope of their work. In size MATTERS, they experiment with scale and how it affects the viewer.
size MATTERS opens November 13, 2015, at the Mobile Museum of Art and will be on view through February 14, 2016. Five other exhibitions open the same day.
From the monumental to the miniature, a painting, drawing or sculpture’s dimensions are crucial to its context and success – whether it’s a massive mural, monumental sculpture or a small religious icon. By either occupying the entire visual field or drawing the viewer tightly inward, both can be employed for extreme visual impact. Scale plays an essential role in achieving any artist’s goals.
size MATTERS has been made possible by grants from Alabama Coasting magazine, the city of Mobile, the Alabama State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Artists include:
Blake Boyd, New Orleans: Boyd’s art includes paintings in clay, gold leaf and watercolor, sculpture, instant photography, video, and site-specific installation. Collectively, all are components of a 20-year conceptual artwork. Several icons of pop culture, including Disney, Star Wars, Andy Warhol, The Beatles, and Playboy influence Boyd’s work. In the tradition of Warhol, who in 1965 announced he would abandon visual art for film, Boyd intends to follow a similar path.
Paul Kittelson, Houston: “The world is a wonderful place to play with form and scale,” Kittelson said. “I am attracted to the undeniable presence of physical objects. Like them or not, they cannot simply be deleted from our view. In fact, the larger they are, the more difficult they are to ignore. Like a cow in the road, we are forced to slow down, stop and recalculate.” paulkittelson.com
Hollie Chastain, Chattanooga: Chastain works mainly with paper, mixing vintage and found images with modern colors and compositions to create work full of originality and narrative. Her work can be found in galleries and art boutiques in the U.S. and abroad, as well as various publications. holliechastain.com
Elizabeth Fox, Orlando, New Orleans: “Smart, savvy and slick, Fox’s exquisitely painted small narrative pictures first appear aloof and theatrical but quickly unleash a tsunami of quirky details that washes back and forth between cultural commentary and charming personal wackiness,” Daniel Kany wrote in Gambit Weekly, Rockport, Maine. elizabethfox.com
Shana Kohnstamm, Nashville: “Soft sculpture, by its very nature, invites more than the eye. It tempts one to touch. My intent is to slow down the viewer by engaging this secondary sense,” Kohnstamm said. “Perhaps the work will engage your curiosity. It might conjure a memory, a moment of play or provoke feelings of wonder.” shanakohnstamm.com
Melinda Matthews, Birmingham: Inspiration for Melinda’s artistic process is gained through her extensive traveling and a member of the Alabama Miniature Art Society. Williams’ works in this exhibition are wheel-thrown ceramic pots, bowls and plates, so diminutive in scale, they are amazing.
Richard McCabe, New Orleans: The Curator of Photography at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, McCabe works primarily in photography, painting, drawing, and installation art. His photos show us a strange slice of everyday and our odd, self-created environment. richardbutlermcabe.com
David Pound, Nashville: “I’m creating a population, one tiny portrait at a time,” Pound said. By combining found things in different ways, Pound creates narrative miniature sculptures mounted in boxes of reclaimed lumber and lined with collage. “Scale is dictated by how the found object presents itself, both in narrative and repurposing,” he said.
Other exhibitions opening November 13 at the Mobile Museum of Art include:
- John Cerney: SELFIE
- Raine Bedsole: YOU ARE THE RIVER
- Hiroshi Sueyoshi: ROCK GARDEN
- AMERICAN ART: 1945 to the Present
- A PASSION FOR THE PAST: New Acquisitions from the Schoenknecht/Paul Collection
