SUNDAY JULY 1, 2018, 6-8 PM-LAINEY FINK SCOTT, RUTH KIRCHMEIER, WIL SIDEMAN & MICAH THANHAUSER
ELEMENTALITY
Lainey Fink Scott, Ruth Kirchmeier, Wil Sideman, Micah Thanhauser
July 1st - July 22, 2018
Opening reception: Sunday, July 1, 2018, 6:00-8:00pm
Sargent Gallery is pleased to announce Elementality, a group show with new artists Wil Sideman and Micah Thanhauser, and new work from Lainey Fink Scott and Ruth Kirchmeier, all four artists are local Martha's Vineyard residents. The show will open on July 1, at 832 State Road, Aquinnah, and will remain on view through July 22, 2018. An opening reception will be held on Sunday, July 1, from 6:00pm until 8:00pm. Elementality features ceramics by Lainey Fink Scott, wood cut prints by Ruth Kirchmeier, glass sculpture from Wil Sideman, and pottery from Micah Thanhauser.
Elementality brings together four artists united through the commonality of their practices being contingent upon the elements in one way or another. Lainey Fink Scott's background in design underscores the sleekness of her functional and sculptural pottery works. It is the collaboration between the earthly materiality and firing process that makes the elements integral to Lainey's work, and her keen sense of design which make her works a true delight to behold. Ruth Kirchmeier has been creating her iconic and dynamic woodcuts for over 40 years. Ruth's ability to create movement, often depicting flowing bodies of water from wood blocks, is one of the most sublime aspects of her work. Her technique of layering multiple colors, sometimes 10 different inks in one work, demonstrates the artist's devotion to her craft as well as her fluency with the medium. Wil Sideman makes glass sculptures, with a focus on recreating vessels that functionally float on or hold water. The weight and transparency that the glass medium imposes on the banal, originally buoyant, opaque objects; buckets, buoys, and bailers, asks the viewer to reconsider their relationship to these ocean objects and their functionality. Micah Thanhauser's pottery is made from native clays, and fired for three days in a wood burning kiln. Micah's works are minimally glazed, celebrating the beauty of the raw clay, and letting the unpredictable movement of the flames and ash create the unique surfaces.
From the book of essays, Elemental Ecocriticism, Thinking with Earth, Air, Water, and Fire 2015, by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Lowell Duckert:
Timothy Morton- Elementality - "One way to think of elements, after Immanuel Kant, is to think them as fusions of subject and object. Fire is fiery; water is wet; earth is earthiness; space is spacious; and so on. An element is a –ness, a quality. It envelops. One finds oneself within it, always already. It is intimate yet strange at the same time. There manifests, as Jeffrey Jerome Cohen puts it in this volume, “a vortex of shared precariousness and unchosen proximities.” Even though it does not have a here or a there, a subject or an object, an element has a specific vibrancy."
Press Release written by Anastasia Sargent, July, 2018
Wil Sideman, "Piscatoribus Sacrum," blown glass, flameworked handle, steel and wood, 10 x 10 x 18 inches
Ruth Kirchmeier, "Forsythia," wood cut print, 10.5 x 14 inches
Lainey Fink Scott, "Gold Temmoku Circle Vase," wheel thrown clay with Gold Temmoku glaze
Micah Thanhauser