Circulator creates an elusive and whimsical dialogue between public nature and composed architecture. In its many representations of the constructed environment, Circulator continues Nield's investigation into possibility and limitation, movement and travel, surface and penetrability.
Circluator
De Chiara Gallery is pleased to announce
the opening of Circulator, a solo
exhibition of new work by New York-based
Canadian artist Donna Nield.
Circulator creates an elusive and
whimsical dialogue between public nature
and composed architecture. In its many
representations of the constructed
environment, Circulator continues
Nield's investigation into possibility
and limitation, movement and travel,
surface and penetrability. Large scale
soft sculpture, a globe-encircling
video, an ambiguous tunnel photograph
and giant potted trees. build their own
fictions, reorganizing repetition into
possibility, barricades into tunnels.
Playing with geometric forms and modern
aesthetics, the 12 sections of Modular
Tunnel can be arranged and rearranged to
create multiple aboveground pathways.
Designed to form a closed unit when
placed in a circular configuration,
Modular Tunnel can also be reconfigured
to create a tunnel-path that can be
entered by the viewer. Here the tunnel
takes the viewer on a disorienting trip
through the gallery.
The idea of circular travel continues in
Whole World, a video that goes on an
abstract looping trip around an
idealized grassy surface of the earth.
On a journey that goes nowhere and
everywhere, the earth is objectified
into a distilled surface with no
entrance or exit.
Snow Tunnel, a photograph of a tunnel
Nield dug in the snow, creates a pathway
that leads anywhere. The raw material
of nature is shaped by the artist to
form a ludicrously pure gesturean
infinite tunnel. The photograph
oscillates between two and three
dimensions, between permanence and the
ephemeral.
Nields Potted Trees are full-scale
foam models of the large potted trees
found in public/corporate spaces. On a
giant scale within the gallery space,
these soft white sculptures seem
ghost-like and looming. Awkwardly
crammed into the gallery space, these
normally invisible objects become
provocatively present.
Circulator is on view at De Chiara
Gallery through April 20th. An expanded
version will be exhibited at
müllerdechiara in Berlin in October,
2002.
Opening Reception: Friday, March 22, 6 - 8 p.m.
Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday
11:00-6:00 pm
Image:
Snow Tunnel, 2001. Cibachrome mounted
on aluminum, 50" x 50"
DE CHIARA GALLERY
521 West 26th St.,
New York City 10001
t.212.967.6007
f.212.967.1604