Artillery: Loft at Liz's Collaborate and Create
Chelsea Dean and Dani Dodge at Loft at Liz’s. Photo courtesy of Andi Campognone.
January 20, 2020
by Genie Davis
EXCERPT:
Both Dani Dodge and Chelsea Dean love the desert and often work in mixed media; the combination of found desert detritus and evocative, iconic desert photographic images here is fiercely graceful and absorbing in content and dimension.
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Beautifully curated by MOAH’s Andi Campognone, Collaborate and Create, now at The Loft at Liz’s through March 3rd, is an exciting exhibition. Matching up the talents of 17 different pairs of artists, the result is compelling – it reveals new dimensionality in some projects, new ways of looking at the world in others, and perhaps best of all, showcases just how wonderful two terrific artists can be when working on the same projects. It’s like the old Doublemint Gum commercial “double your pleasure, double your fun.”
The collaborative duos include Alex Couwenberg & Lisa Schulte, Joy Ray & Dianna Stevens Woolley, Terry Cervantes & Marthe Aponte, Samuelle Richardson & Catherine Ruane, Vicki Walsh & Jim Daichendt, Margo Ray & Scott Yoell, Jane Szabo & Jill Sykes, Annie Seaton & Laurie Sumiye, Dani Dodge & Chelsea Dean, Snezana Saraswati Petrovic & Chenhung Chen, Karen Hochman Brown & Ann Marie Rousseau, Randi Matushevitz & Debbie Korbel, Marisabel Bazan & Vojislav Radovanovic, Terry Arena & Chris O’Mahony, Bailey Ferguson & Michelle Schwengel-Regala, Jeanne Dunn & Edwin Vasquez, Stevie Love & Cudra Clover.
Some are artists whose mediums or styles coalesce: Karen Hochman Brown & Ann Marie Rousseau, for example, each deal with line. “Indigo Circle of Sun,” the digitally manipulated color pencil drawing exhibited here features both Rousseau’s technique of swirling, threads-of-the-universe lines, and Hochman Brown’s kaleidoscope-like flowering forms. Snezana Petrovic and Chenhung Chen’s “Neutral Avatar” likewise joins two artists who seem perfectly linked as to technique. Their work here features the rich, dense, and delicate sculptural forms both use in solo projects to create unique works that evoke supple life forms from the sea and alien planets.
Other paired artists are coupled with thematic or subject-centered interests, such as Marisabel Bazan & Vojislav Radovanovic, who offer a radiant, dimensional mixed media multitude of butterflies. Both Dani Dodge and Chelsea Dean love the desert and often work in mixed media; the combination of found desert detritus and evocative, iconic desert photographic images here is fiercely graceful and absorbing in content and dimension.
Debbie Korbel & Randi Matusheviz offer a brilliant, highly interactive, florally dominant piece that is both playful and socially prescient, as is much of both artist’s individual works. “Censor-nip” allows viewers to stand in as the face of a woman, and choose a variety of “Nipples” to place on her body.
Annie Seaton & Laurie Sumiye show a glowing, gorgeous, and dreamy series of four sea-drenched images in “Reflections on Water;” Samuelle Richardson & Catherine Ruane’s “Tree House,” creates a sculptural setting for Ruane’s signature, detailed graphite work, seamlessly pairing her work with Richardon’s dimensional magic.
From the delicate beauty of Marthe Aponte & Terry Cervantes “The Creation for Sacred Entomology” to the haunting seasonal dichotomy in Jane Szabo & Jill Sykes’ photo transfer and oil on panel, “Pendulum,” there is not a work here that isn’t expansive and transitional for both artists. Take the mixed media painting and sculpture pairing of Jeanne Dunn & Edwin Vasquez, “The Birdhouse Where Nobody Lives” which pulls viewers into a lonely sunset; Terry Arena & Chris O’Mahoney’s fascinating, large-scale mixed-media “Out of Many, One,” or Joy Ray & Dianna Wooley working in a seamless combination of encaustic and mixed media in “After the Fire.”
Too numerous to mention all works, suffice to say that each pairing is simply grand, and should be experienced in person. A collaboration workshop takes the joyful co-art technique to attendees on Saturday, February 29th.