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17/4/2002

Arlene Shechet

Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York

Flowers Found

The Elizabeth Harris Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Arlene Shechet. This is her second solo-exhibition with the gallery.

There will be a reception for the artist on Thursday, April 18, from 6-8.

Budding, blooming, fading and seeding, flowers are everywhere in Arlene Shechet's new sculptures. Creating works in bronze, rubber, textile and porcelain, Shechet has expanded her visual vocabulary to include the natural world, while remaining inspired by Buddhist philosophy. Ephemerality and fluidity move throughout the pieces.

In Casting Water Shechet has devised a method for literally casting water in rubber. Deep blue liquid moves through the gallery seeping from one room to the next, creating what Anne Ellegood's essay calls a "map of motion, each element a fingerprint of a moment." Shechet speaks to the unique quality of attention that both the artistic and the meditative process share. In slowing down and peering into the nature of an instant, she reminds us of how compelling this kind of awareness can be.

Everyday Prayer Wheel isa textile that pays homage to a fading handwritten list of wildflowers compiled by Aline Porter, wife of Eliot Porter, found by the artist on Great Spruce Head Island in Maine. Sky Line is an installation of scores of gray/brown porcelain vessels that evoke the recently disrupted outline of Manhattan as seen by the artist during her morning walks across the Brooklyn Bridge. Known for her use of the vessel as a metaphor for Buddhist temples, Shechet expands her references to include the contemporary urban landscape.

In the bronze figures, Bud, Bloom, and Bouquet, sculptures alluding to Buddhist figures become transformed upon closer inspection into flower forms. While attention to the moment inevitably involves a sense of loss, there is also, in Shechet's work, the unmistakable and exuberant sense of something found.

Arlene Shechet lives and works in New York City. She has had solo-exhibitions every year starting in 1995. In the past year her work was purchased by the Brooklyn Museum of Art; she had a one-person show at A/D Gallery, New York; and created an installation for "A Threshold of Spirit" at St. John the Divine. In the coming year she will have a solo-exhibition at the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, curated by Elizabeth Brown.

The gallery is located at 529 West 20th Street, 6th floor, and is open Tues. through Sat. 10-6.

Elizabeth Harris Gallery
529 West 20th Street, 6B New York
Hours: Tues.-Sat. 10am-6pm

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