Florida Gulf Coast University
WASMER ART GALLERY
When We See Further
Renee Rey, Marina Font, Heather Couch, and Terre Rybovich
Curated by John Loscuito and Anica Sturdivant
October 16 - November 19, 2020
WASMER ART GALLERY
When We See Further
Renee Rey, Marina Font, Heather Couch, and Terre Rybovich
Curated by John Loscuito and Anica Sturdivant
October 16 - November 19, 2020
Beyond the Individual
Essay by John Loscuito, Gallery Director
The physical condition is a subject that artists have been reflecting on throughout history. While the human body is something that joins us, it is also something that divides us, or at the very least separates us. When We See Further is an exhibition about seeing beyond the individual and how those differences expand the definition of being human.
The artists in this exhibition, Heather Couch, Marina Font, Renée Rey and Terre Rybovich, offer four distinct ways of looking, feeling and thinking about the body. Each of their perspectives offers a unique tactile and psychological experience. They do this through their varied mediums that present the limits and potentials of the body’s physical and psychological state.
For these artists, depicting the body is just the beginning of a journey to something else. The works reveal many themes including impermanence, transformation, and resilience. Approaching their work for the first time is similar to encountering each other in life, it begins with a surface understanding of each piece that deepens through repeated encounters, and from the associations derived between the works.
Heather Couch uses clay, fibers and wood to create stand-alone objects and installations. Her ceramic forms range in size from a few inches to a few feet, but they all share evidence of her hands and fingers. Rather than smoothing the clay surface, Couch is purposely revealing her process and her body in the work. The bulbous forms of her sculptures are opened as though they once were occupied. They suggest the presence of a body while recording the body’s act of making. Couch also creates organic ladder structures with handles immersed in bundles of wool. They hang from the ceiling implying movement to another place. The combination of these elements creates a landscape of possibilities open to interpretation that we find repeated in the other artists as well.Marina Font is explicit in her use of the human body in a different way. Photography is the basis of her work and an entry point for the viewer. The model she photographs can be seen as a representation of “any woman”. This model is used repeatedly throughout her work, but is always positioned in the same pose. Font then layers the photograph of the life-size nude with explosive patterns that recall star systems, energy and past generations. These patterns are made using thread, fabric, and ceramics, creating a visceral juxtaposition against the photographic image. The abstract patterns exist in our physical space, more real and active than the photographic image itself, suggesting a static body that is in the process of exposing the emotional, spiritual and psychological being.
The large-scale paintings by Renée Rey are figurative and depict fantastical landscapes. Her paintings allude to an ethereal space of atmospheric beings that float and merge with each other and their surroundings. The physical laws break in a multitude of ways. The bodies themselves are fluid in gender, age and size. They intersect with each other, becoming one, as the sky and landscapes create symbolic forms celebrating this state of flux. Much like the abstract patterns in Font’s works, Rey’s bodies become the patterns, fragmenting into possibilities beyond the static form. Rey also describes her figures as self-portraits. They are interpretations of herself over the course of her life.
Self-portraiture is seen again in Terre Rybovich’s process. She begins with placing her body directly onto the drawings. It is a performative act that creates a literal imprint or tracing of her physical self within the work. This ghost of her body begins the drawing.
From there, Rybovich generates infinite possibilities for her drawings, from formal investigations to morphological evolutions with animals. Birds are a recent addition to her work. Their larger than life depictions are gridded over her body print, morphing and transforming it. The body’s scale and form change in relationship to both the birds as well as her other additions. Out of this process new structures are defined that map out the body’s relationship to itself, to nature, and mythic narratives.
The variety of approaches depicting the human body was the impetus for the exhibition, but through studio visits and group conversations, the artists revealed a different purpose. It became clear that a larger work was being created as each artist found connections and overlaps between the pieces they were creating for the exhibition. This was also during the first six months of the Covid-19 outbreak and the protests over racial inequities. It is impossible to separate the exhibition from the context in which it was created. The artists themselves see their work in new ways based on these events and through their collaboration. The human condition is clearly only limited by the context in which we choose to imagine it to exist. These artists provide ever-expanding hopes for that condition.
Acknowledgements:
Gallery Director/Editor
John Loscuito
Graphic Design/Media
Anica Sturdivant
Lead Gallery Assistant
Farrah Alkhadra
Gallery Assistants
Joseph Adams
Breah Fyffe
Marcela Pulgarin
Essay by John Loscuito, Gallery Director
The physical condition is a subject that artists have been reflecting on throughout history. While the human body is something that joins us, it is also something that divides us, or at the very least separates us. When We See Further is an exhibition about seeing beyond the individual and how those differences expand the definition of being human.
The artists in this exhibition, Heather Couch, Marina Font, Renée Rey and Terre Rybovich, offer four distinct ways of looking, feeling and thinking about the body. Each of their perspectives offers a unique tactile and psychological experience. They do this through their varied mediums that present the limits and potentials of the body’s physical and psychological state.
For these artists, depicting the body is just the beginning of a journey to something else. The works reveal many themes including impermanence, transformation, and resilience. Approaching their work for the first time is similar to encountering each other in life, it begins with a surface understanding of each piece that deepens through repeated encounters, and from the associations derived between the works.
Heather Couch uses clay, fibers and wood to create stand-alone objects and installations. Her ceramic forms range in size from a few inches to a few feet, but they all share evidence of her hands and fingers. Rather than smoothing the clay surface, Couch is purposely revealing her process and her body in the work. The bulbous forms of her sculptures are opened as though they once were occupied. They suggest the presence of a body while recording the body’s act of making. Couch also creates organic ladder structures with handles immersed in bundles of wool. They hang from the ceiling implying movement to another place. The combination of these elements creates a landscape of possibilities open to interpretation that we find repeated in the other artists as well.Marina Font is explicit in her use of the human body in a different way. Photography is the basis of her work and an entry point for the viewer. The model she photographs can be seen as a representation of “any woman”. This model is used repeatedly throughout her work, but is always positioned in the same pose. Font then layers the photograph of the life-size nude with explosive patterns that recall star systems, energy and past generations. These patterns are made using thread, fabric, and ceramics, creating a visceral juxtaposition against the photographic image. The abstract patterns exist in our physical space, more real and active than the photographic image itself, suggesting a static body that is in the process of exposing the emotional, spiritual and psychological being.
The large-scale paintings by Renée Rey are figurative and depict fantastical landscapes. Her paintings allude to an ethereal space of atmospheric beings that float and merge with each other and their surroundings. The physical laws break in a multitude of ways. The bodies themselves are fluid in gender, age and size. They intersect with each other, becoming one, as the sky and landscapes create symbolic forms celebrating this state of flux. Much like the abstract patterns in Font’s works, Rey’s bodies become the patterns, fragmenting into possibilities beyond the static form. Rey also describes her figures as self-portraits. They are interpretations of herself over the course of her life.
Self-portraiture is seen again in Terre Rybovich’s process. She begins with placing her body directly onto the drawings. It is a performative act that creates a literal imprint or tracing of her physical self within the work. This ghost of her body begins the drawing.
From there, Rybovich generates infinite possibilities for her drawings, from formal investigations to morphological evolutions with animals. Birds are a recent addition to her work. Their larger than life depictions are gridded over her body print, morphing and transforming it. The body’s scale and form change in relationship to both the birds as well as her other additions. Out of this process new structures are defined that map out the body’s relationship to itself, to nature, and mythic narratives.
The variety of approaches depicting the human body was the impetus for the exhibition, but through studio visits and group conversations, the artists revealed a different purpose. It became clear that a larger work was being created as each artist found connections and overlaps between the pieces they were creating for the exhibition. This was also during the first six months of the Covid-19 outbreak and the protests over racial inequities. It is impossible to separate the exhibition from the context in which it was created. The artists themselves see their work in new ways based on these events and through their collaboration. The human condition is clearly only limited by the context in which we choose to imagine it to exist. These artists provide ever-expanding hopes for that condition.
Acknowledgements:
Gallery Director/Editor
John Loscuito
Graphic Design/Media
Anica Sturdivant
Lead Gallery Assistant
Farrah Alkhadra
Gallery Assistants
Joseph Adams
Breah Fyffe
Marcela Pulgarin