JANUARY 12 – FEBRUARY 25, 2018
Emily Galusha Gallery
Opening reception: Friday, January 12, 6 – 8 pm
Artist presentations: Friday January 12, 4 pm
Fogelberg, Red Wing, and Anonymous Artists features the work of Gregory Palombo and Gillan Doty, 2016 recipients of the Fogelberg Studio Fellowship; Lily Fein and Valerie Ling, recipients of the 2016 Anonymous Artist Studio Fellowship; and Audra Smith, the 2017 Red Wing Collectors Society Foundation Award recipient.
Gregory Palombo’s “curiosities lead the way in [his] investigations.” The objects seek a place between history and modernism, between East and West. He is finding a specific voice, one that approaches singular authenticity as he creates tangible interpretations of culture. A serial approach to his investigations allows viewers and users to bridge multiple conversations, materials, and forms.
Gillan Doty creates work that evokes functionality and simplicity. Using soda- and wood-fired kilns, he steps toward tradition in process even when the form diverges into contemporary exploration. His work displays the energy of active finger swipes, the chased after kiss of atmosphere, investigative asymmetry, and handles of comfort. The work embodies a marriage of methods while seeking a place on a well-worn path.
Lily Fein presents us with organic porcelain forms, quiet in their authority. She speaks a formal visual language, bringing to life the tensions of conversation and interaction. Fein says, “With surface, form and scale, the work informs and questions what it means to touch, both locally and at a distance.”
Valerie Ling notes, “Children simply notice what they notice.” Her sculptures draw viewers to a childlike realm of awareness, yet there can also be detected a film of darkness in the work — an irony that comes from eating all the cake we could possibly desire. Here, in this place of contrast, we can investigate the layers of our mortality. Not to worry, the work is far to joyous to stay in the veil of darkness. Ling awakens us from adulthood with a world of pure imagination.
Audra Smith creates pragmatic utilitarian objects with a subversively impractical elements, informed by the Memphis Group, and tempered with midwestern rationalism. Her wares embody her goals to make well-made, utilitarian pottery. The continuous exploration of color, pattern, space, and shape in her surface decoration inform the “ongoing discovery of [her] personal language as a ceramic artist.”