Curatorial Projects
Charm Phase
Curated by Emily Carol Burns
On view August 3rd–September 21, 2023
Maake Projects, State College, PA
ARTISTS
Amelie Mancini / John Koller / Parsley Steinweiss / Yeonhye Park / Eleanor Conover / Emily Endo
Dani Spewak & Sara Gallagher / Siennie Lee / Stephen Proski / Rafael Plaisant / Francine LeClercq / Monika Malewska / Lauren Rice / Barbara Campbell Thomas / Eleanor Anderson
Mystic Vision
A solo exhibition by Judd Schiffman
Curated by Emily Carol Burns
Maake Projects, State College, PA
On view October 24, 2021–January 7, 2022
Artist Talk: Wednesday, October 13 from 2:40–3:40pm, Penn State Ceramics Studios, Penn State University Park, PA. The talk is open to the public.
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 14 from 6–8pm at Maake Projects.
Exhibition Essay
Written by Emily Carol Burns
Published by Arte Fuse
Judd Schiffman’s solo exhibition Mystic Vision is on view at Maake Projects in State College, PA until December 19th. The show includes seven large ceramic installations and seven smaller individual ceramic works. Each of the large assembled works consists of fired and glazed stoneware segments arranged and adhered to the wall like ropes of clay. The arrangements—through painstakingly placed according to a schematic drawing—appear to have the possibility, even probability of life, and of movement. Like the skeleton of a serpent, the links of stoneware slither vertebrae by vertebrae, encircling the central figures like prey.
The works are fastened directly into the gallery wall, the hardware obscured by fired clay coins, decorated with an icing of thick gold luster that adorns the segments, like necklaces festooned across the flat surface. The gallery itself mirrors the work—or vice versa—as the majority of the work was made for the show. The arched windows of the gallery are analogs for the sloped tops of the outer frames of each piece. The arches also recall windows from religious structures like churches and temples and other relics of devotional, spiritual realms.
The works morph from snake to necklace to arch—metamorphosis is after all at the heart of the work, inspired by the artist’s own journey through psychological space via ritual or enhanced rite of passage, or dramatic arrival into the vastly different world of a new parent responsible for a young life.
Each work stands on its own, but also becomes entwined with others in a scattered tableau on each wall—in particular the large wall to the left upon entry to the gallery, where three framed works become floating clouds that could bounce from floor to ceiling and each other like sleepy bumper cars.
The works are entirely ceramic, but invoke the language of painting. The outer frames create the edge of a hypothetical support, the boundary within which the narrative takes place. The compositions are constructed of intricately sculpted, carved, and glazed figures, flora, and fauna—characters that act out the stories. The works appear like low relief in photographs, but close up they are quite sculptural—pressing out from the wall in amorphous dimensional bursts, with intricate carving that creates a vastly tactile visual experience. The artist’s background in drawing comes through, as the incised veins, and rivers and valleys of clay covering the surfaces reveal a desire for line.
The negative space between elements mimics a gessoed canvas surface, which is just the white gallery wall, but the shadows cast by the forms and the careful calibration of the power of the composition make the viewer doubt their own eyes. The effect mirrors the mystic and ethereal presence the work imbibes.
Each work sets the stage for a separate miniature drama, complete with tiny sets and actors—from a family of bats framed by an oval-esque cave of fruits and leaves, or a portrait of the artist lying beneath the shade of abstracted tree forms. Sporadically, a child’s mark-making appears, and collaborations with Schiffman’s young daughter appear, most noticeably in the child’s drawing hung with magnets on the gallery door. Journey to the Lower World/Power Animal Retrieval references the psilocybin-laced visions brought on by psychedelic mushrooms, the tiny bodies of which are densely sculpted into a woven mat of fungal forms. The often soft, pastel glazes and myriad animal antagonists evoke an enchanting fairytale mysteriousness. Like many fables and tales, the graceful forms are tinged with danger and darkness from the cracks in the picturesque—a bloodthirsty skunk decapitates a naked figure, snakes prowl parrots, and flames engulf a lone wolf.
Overall, the work is enchanting. The viewer is seduced—mesmerized—into joining in on the story, to become part of the narrative. It’s easy to become lost in the artist’s imagination where reality blends with an abstract universe and one where Schiffman tries to make sense of his role in a journey in many worlds—as an artist, father, and human being.
Calendar
A solo exhibition by Christina Van Der Merwe
Curated by Emily Carol Burns
On view August 27–October 2, 2021
Maake Projects, State College, PA
Opening Reception: August 27 from 6–8pm
Imprint the Air
Curated by Emily Carol Burns
June 4–August 13, 2021
Reinberger Gallery
Cleveland Institute of Art
Cleveland, OH
Garden School
Curated by Emily Carol Burns
October 2–November 21, 2020
Trestle Gallery
850 3rd Avenue, Suite 411
Brooklyn, NY, 11232
Angelina Gualdoni
Pareesa Pourian
Lauren Portada
Padma Rajendran
Alexandria Tarver
Zip City
Curated by Emily Carol Burns
August 1–September 1, 2020
Left Field Gallery
1036 Los Osos Valley Road
Los Osos, CA 93402
Nancy Y. Kim
Theresa Daddezio
Sarah Grass
Sidney Mullis
Calli Moore
Seldon Yuan
Lauriston Avery
Curatorial Statement
Written by Emily Carol Burns
Zip City features of the work of seven artists and bring together painting, sculpture, work on paper, and mixed media work. All pieces included in the show incorporate line as a primary element—whether forming the strokes of hand-written text, rhythmic biological forms, criss-crossing threads, dyed sand-coated wooden arches, or deep channels carved into thick paper. Line can evoke a feeling of the liminal—a transient quality, like electricity passing through a live wire. The beginnings and ends fade away and the medium is the message—the paths taken leave behind the memory of the journey.
I wanted to curate a show where each work and each artist's approach was quite different—from vastly different materials and themes—but were tied together in an uncanny, non-verbal way. The artists all approached line in unique ways and I felt that the show, although it had a lot of variety, was also very cohesive and felt like a complete thought when the viewer entered the space. Curating a physical exhibition during Covid was a different experience, but it felt really wonderful to be able to have real work in a real space when so many shows had either been postponed or online. I worked closely with the gallery to realize the show, even though I couldn't travel to install in person.
Biophilia
Curated by Emily Carol Burns
September 28th–October 27th, 2019
Unpaved Gallery
59474 Scandia Lane
Yucca Valley, CA 92284
Howard Fonda
Delphine Hennelly
Greg Ito
Haley Josephs
Aaron Elvis Jupin
Karen Lederer
Nat Meade
Laurie Nye
Padma Rajendran
Kathia St. Hilaire
Jasmine Zelaya
Curatorial Statement
Written by Emily Carol Burns
There is a type of exchange between humans and nature that remains deeply rooted at the core of our beings on the planet. This intrique—eroding over time on a grand scale in American culture—makes frequent appearances today in various forms of contemporary art in the wake of widespread climate concerns and many other systemic anxieties affecting communities on a grand scale. In the hectic nature of our everyday lives, the quiet, simple hum of the reciprocal romance with nature can get lost in all the noise.
Biophilia is a group exhibition of paintings and works on paper by artists from across the US that explores the human relationship with plants and living things on earth through the lens of contemporary painting. The relationship between the human and botanical—unique to each person, non-verbal, intuitive and unspoken—a mysterious and perhaps clairvoyant experience. Painting, then, seems like an appropriate channel through which to investigate the bond between people and plants.
Comprised of artwork being made within the past year, this show attempts to capture some small fragment of the zeitgeist, and present work that considers the ways in which our connection with nature is present today. The exhibition takes inspiration from the desert landscape surrounding the gallery—the desert being a place inviting quiet introspection, and the value and viability of life in an arid environment. Together, this collection of work provides an occasion for reflection and consideration of this deep—though perhaps dormant—elemental intimacy.
Linger Still
A solo exhibition of work by Kaveri Raina
Curated by Emily Carol Burns
April 12–May 12, 2019
Assembly Room
191 Henry Street
New York, NY 10002
PRESS RELEASE
ESSAY by Megha Ralapati
Exhibition Catalog
Catalog PDF
Curatorial Statement
Assembly Room presents Linger Still, a solo show of new work by Kaveri Raina, curated by Emily Carol Burns.
In her paintings, Raina depicts the sensation of navigating unfamiliar territory. Born and raised in Delhi, India, and moving to the United States at a young age, she grapples with the questions of self and reflects on her past and future through themes of displacement, in-betweenness, and unease through painting. She considers her work an extension of her parents, their upbringing, and the morals and teachings they instilled in her.
The works in this show continue Raina’s search on what it means to hover. She questions what it feels like to linger or float over time— and to eventually learn to embrace the inherent uncertainty. In a shift from past themes, these new works represent this recent embodiment of perpetual liminality—a conscious choice to be neither here nor there, a simultaneity of otherness. Making a sentient choice to be part of many, to experience a hybrid identity evokes the sadness of memories seemingly lost, but also the mirage of what could have been. The consequences of this decision become sometimes empowering, often precarious, and always clouded by ambiguity.
Highly meditative, yet vigorous color energizes the woven burlap and canvas surfaces of the paintings, creating a visual push and pull—a metaphor for the lively unease of the experience of constant relocation and reinvention. Burlap is a significant material, the rough weave of the fibers offering a surface which is already permeable, and on which paint can be applied from opposite planes. The making of the paintings themselves becomes a physical embodiment of a shifting, rotating approach to existence.
Recapturing the directness of drawing in her practice, Raina incorporates the intimacy and immediacy of graphite into works on paper, as well as larger oil paintings influenced by this re-emergence in her work. An entirely new development includes the appearance of image-based forms and figures, whose physical bodies and forms are embedded together the overlapping, amorphous landscapes.
KITSCH
Curated by Emily Carol Burns
December 10, 2016–January 21, 2017
studio e gallery
609 S Brandon Street
Seattle, WA 98108
Emily Silver
Karen Lederer
Caroline Larsen
Caroline Wells Chandler
Paul Komada
TAKE 2
Curated by Emily Carol Burns and studio e gallery
January–February 2017
The Alice Gallery
6007 12th Avenue South
Seattle, WA 98108
Caroline Wells Chandler
Emily Burns
Kyla Hansen
Caroline Larsen
Karen Lederer
Emily Silver
Paul Komada
Whiting Tennis.
DEAL WITH IT
A survey of contemporary painting and works on paper by thirty-three artists
Curated by Emily Carol Burns
August 22–October 19, 2016
The Woskob Family Gallery
State College, PA 16801
ARTISTS
Diana Behl / Julia Berkman / Morgan Blair / Caetlynn Booth / Melissa Brown / Matthew Carrieri / Caroline Wells Chandler / Sarah Coote / Douglas Degges / Maria Dimanshtein / Magda Dudziak / Sarabeth Dunton / Mark Joshua Epstein / Jen Hitchings / Peter Hoffmeister / Ken Horne / Will Hutnick / Katie Kirk / Kirstin Lamb / Tony Loftman / Kate McCammon / Senem Oezdogan / Janet Olney / Ashely Peifer / Allison Reimus / Samantha Robinson / Kathleen Rogers / Gyan Shrosbree / Yael Ben-Simon / Garth Swanson / Millee Tibbs / Emma Webster / Sarah West / Nick Wilkinson
