Deep Waters by Amanda Thackray

Guttenberg Arts Gallery is pleased to present Deep Waters, an exhibition of work by artist Amanda Thackray. On view from September 5th - September 27th, 2020 at the Guttenberg Arts Gallery. To promote social distancing Guttenberg Arts is now open by appointment only and virtually on their website.  Patrons can schedule their visit or view the virtual gallery by going to www.guttenbergarts.org/exhibitions.

Amanda Thackray employs hand papermaking processes as a primary medium in her practice to create complex forms referencing microscopia. She derives the content for her work through lengthy periods of research, guided by the tenuous relationship between the utility and detritus of human-made artifacts, focusing on our burden of plastic waste. She is equally terrified and fascinated by the ability of plastic to break down into smaller and smaller microplastics, while never actually degrading.

Thackray’s research into the pervasiveness of plastics in our environments and our bodies is visualized as large scale installations of quasi-fictional landscapes. Explored through simulacra of handmade paper, projects telescope between the spaces of the microscopic human body and the vastness of worldwide bodies of water. These dimensional landscapes present themselves as detailed yet ambiguous fiber studies and fictitious maps of overwhelming polluted ocean. Thackray utilizes imagery of netting to convey multilayered references attributed to both organic bodily material and human-made, rigid, immortal plastic - the net is a malleable grid concurrently acting as a trap and a sieve.

Through working with handmade paper, Thackray engages with water - often site-specific water - to create imagery that is directly tied, both materially and conceptually, to that same water. Revealing a murky space occupying parallel bodies - human bodies and bodies of water - this narrative foreshadows new territory for her practice and begins to build a conceptual bridge between microplastics-polluted waterways and human bodies filled with the same microscopic plastics.

Amanda Thackray is a multidisciplinary artist and educator, based in Newark, NJ, whose practice sits at the intersection of craft, sculpture, and environmentally-based social practice. Thackray’s projects have been exhibited at The Newark Museum, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, The Montclair Art Museum, The NARS Foundation, and The Knockdown Center. She is the recipient of a 2020 Creative Catalyst Fund Artist Fellowship. She has been awarded numerous residencies including The Arctic Circle in Svalbard, Norway, and artist-in-residence at the Museum of Art and Design in NYC. Her work is in over a dozen public collections including The Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, Mediatheque Andre Malraux, France, Yale University, and The Library of Congress. She teaches printmaking at SUNY Purchase and Rutgers University. Thackray earned her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and her BFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.

Exhibition: Sept. 5th, 2020 - Sept. 27, 2020; Opening Saturday September 5th.  Schedule your visit by going to www.guttenbergarts.org/exhibitions  For more information please contact matt@guttenbergarts.org or 201-868-8585. Guttenberg Art Gallery is free and open to the public by appointment only. www.guttenbergarts.org  Guttenberg Arts programming is made possible by a grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a division of the Department of State, and administered by the Hudson County Office of Cultural & Heritage Affairs, Thomas a. Degise, Hudson County Executive & the Hudson County Board of Chosen Freeholders.

Blue Ghost TrawlerHand pigmented cottonpaper pulp30 x 89 x 0.5 inches2020

Blue Ghost Trawler

Hand pigmented cotton

paper pulp

30 x 89 x 0.5 inches

2020

Guttenberg Arts Gallery reopens by appointment only

(Guttenberg NJ) Guttenberg Arts Gallery is pleased to present MADE HERE: Winter 2020 a group exhibition of our Winter Artists in Residence; Lucas Almeida, Jason Robert Bauer, Vassilina Dikidjieva, Charlotte Massip and Adams Puryear. On view March 31st - April 26th. The works included in MADE HERE: Winter 2020 were created during the artist’s 3 month Space & Time Artist Residency at Guttenberg Arts. Guttenberg Arts will host an opening reception for MADE HERE: Winter 2020 on Tuesday March 31st from 7pm - 9pm.

During his time at Guttenberg Arts, Lucas Almeida’s delved deeper into his creative process by exploring a range of mediums including drawing, etching and writing poetry. Almeida’s daily practice of drawing acts as a foundation for his other processes. Finding shapes with meaningful content and a balance between light and dark result in a series of sequential drawings that express movement and transformation which often feature themes that arise at the spur of a moment. In short, Almeida believes that art should help people feel more alive and compares reality to a really big cake.  Almeida explains, “Everyone has a slice of cake, the same way each one experiences reality in a unique way. That ‘slice’ that keeps on growing accordingly with what each one does in life. No one knows for sure what that cake tastes like, some people say that is an orange cake, other’s say it’s carrot, and there’s a bunch that wishes that would be a chocolate cake, but no one truly knows, all we have is some hints, some close clues to whatever it might be.”

Jason Robert Bauer works in pursuit of equanimity creating mental, physical and spiritual spaces through sculpture, video, installation, sound and light. His work explores concepts of perception and interconnectivity with an emphasis on minutiae and vernacular construction using heirloom and repurposed objects.  Bauer has been working primarily with glass for over 13 years and while at Guttenberg Arts acted as a consultant and the pilot artist in resident for the newly established glassblowing facilities.

Vassilina Dikidjieva’s artworks are linked of her architectural fascination with cultural heritage and contemporary art. Discovering ancient places in Bulgaria, Ethiopia, Greece, Egypt and Italy felt like time traveling for the artist.  During her travels, Dikidjieva finds themes from history and mythology which she strives to rethink in her paintings, prints and drawings.  Dikidjieva states, “Juxtapositions of opposites have been an important approach in my architectural and artistic projects and I recently embraced printmaking to revisit with increased clarity and intensity ancient symbols, elements, iconic images in the context of current hot topics and events.” While in residence at Guttenberg Arts, Dikidjieva expanded her practice to include screen printing and one of her main explorations was a tribute to Leonardo in which she reflects the phenomenon that five hundred years after Leonardo’s death, Mona Lisa is more popular than ever, outshining all other art icons and becoming a symbol of the Louvre Museum.

Charlotte Massip invites us to a permanent questioning on the visible reality and the gap between it and its representation. For her, the body is as much a material as a reflection, an object of study as a subject of thought and in her work the two remain constantly overlapping. Her incisive eye finds in the technique of engraving, both sharp and intimate, the most appropriate tool.

Adams Puryear utilizes the ceramic vessel among other components to reflect his life experiences steeped in culture and technology. Despite each large sculpture having many pieces and materials involved, the utilitarian functional ceramic vessel remains at his work’s center of thought. In general Puryear’s ceramic objects are bluntly shaped, unrefined and appear primitive, with marks from my hand and fingerprints left exposed. Puryear has made this uncomplicated style of clay work for several years and feels the need to cultivate new complex forms and surfaces to incorporate into these components. Puryear believes that this overhaul will be key to develop a more articulated engaging artwork.

Exhibition: March 31, 2020 - April 26, 2020; Opening Reception on Tuesday March 31st, 6-9pm.  For more information please contact matt@guttenbergarts.org or 201-868-8585. Guttenberg Art Gallery is free and open to the public by appointment. www.guttenbergarts.org  Guttenberg Arts programming is made possible by a grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a division of the Department of State, and administered by the Hudson County Office of Cultural & Heritage Affairs, Thomas A. Degise, Hudson County Executive & the Hudson County Board of Chosen Freeholders.

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Important Information regarding Covid-19

Dear Patrons,

We want to share with you what we're doing at Guttenberg Arts to make sure that our space remains a safe and healthy place for the community to gather and enjoy the arts.

Here’s what we’re doing:

  1. Suspending Certain Programs To ensure we do not contribute to the spread of the Covid 19 virus, we are currently suspended our March and April 2020 public programming. This includes cancelling our upcoming Made Here Winter 2020 Group Show Opening Reception scheduled for March 31st and rescheduling our Free India Ink Workshop on April 11th to a later date.

  2. Sanitizing hard surfaces. We are using sanitizing wipes to clean door handles, sink faucets, light switches, buttons, and more daily!

  3. Training staff. In addition to the above measures, our staff and artists are instructed to wash their hands when arriving to work. Any staff member with a cough is asked to remain at home.

  4. Monitoring the situation. Guttenberg Arts will still be open for business until further notice and we welcome our studio renters and gallery goers to continue to visit our space. However, we do ask all our patrons to email studio@guttenbergarts.org prior to visiting so we can schedule your visit. We will be monitoring the situation as it progresses and we will keep an open channel of communication with all of you. 

  5. New Exhibition Dates: The Winter 2020 Group Exhibition will still be on view by appointment from Saturday April 4th - April 26th. Again, please email us to schedule your gallery tour.

Here’s what you can do to help us:

  1. Stay home if you are sick! 

  2. Wash your hands when you arrive. Washing your hands thoroughly for at least 20 seconds is the best way to stop the spread of disease. Keep yourself and your fellow patrons safe by washing your hands in our restrooms before enjoying the gallery or beginning or work.

We hope you understand our decision to limit the amount of group gatherings at our space as we feel it’s in the best interest of the community at large. Please do not hesitate to reach out to our Director Matt Barteluce at matt@guttenbergarts.org with any questions or concerns!