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2007 Exhibits
Kathryn Snell-Ryan
May 2007
Mandy Rogers Horton

Opening May 5th, 6 to 9 p.m.Living and working in Nashville, TN since
2003, Mandy Rogers Horton studied visual arts at Anderson University,
IN, The Chautauqua Institute, NY, and American University, Washington
DC.  As an army brat and student she has been fortunate to travel in
Europe including extended stays in Germany, Ireland, and Italy.  Such
travels have left her with a fascination with culture and languages.
Drawing and painting function as one language through which to
search, contemplate and respond to the world around her. Rogers
Horton also teaches studio art and art history courses at local
universities including Belmont University, Middle Tennessee State
University, and Watkins College of Art and Design.  She lives in
Nashville with her husband, artist, Rocky Horton.

www.mandyrogers.net


April 2007
Field Guide
Kathryn Snell-Ryan and Heather Phillips

Observing forms and patterns found in daily life, Nashville artist
Kathryn Snell Ryan and Heather Phillips of Chicago comment through
their work on the human experience.

Artists Kathryn Snell-Ryan and Heather Phillips work will be on view at
Twist Art Gallery in April. Both artists are art therapists who met while
working toward their Master’s degrees at the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago They are both concerned with the basic elements
that make up the human experience. Snell Ryan explains, “Drawing
connections between the natural and human realms, I am interested in
relationships, community, and self -- how we are hopeful, where we
are drawn apart, and what this might look like if we were all trees and
dirt and air.” Heather Phillips states, “While making this series of
drawings, I have been interested in the following: tangles, webs, and
streamers; tree lines; the way that wires bunch around utility poles;
the lines that happen when wind hits water; and the changing
formations of flocks of birds in flight.  These drawings explore these
natural and human-made patterns, their rigidity and also the potential
for chance elements to cause deviations within the patterns.”


March 2007
Eros and Thanatos
Heather Spriggs Thompson and Quinn Dukes

Eros and Thanatos is a performance piece by Heather Spriggs
Thompson and Quinn Dukes.

The two performers act out in separate spaces connected only by long
cords.  Each wear dresses with attached pouches, which carry multiple
pods.  During the performance they each tear open the pouches and
remove their own pods in order to retrieve the others pods at twelve
stations outside the gallery space.  This birthing action of removing the
pods symbolizes the reciprocal connection in relationship - the
continuous give and take.  The twelve stations that become unloading
and loading stops as the performers remove pods from their own
pouches and retrieve the other’s pods, signify passing of time, ritual
rests (as the twelve stations of the cross).  The process is a journey of
doing and undoing as each opens and closes each pouch at every
station.  This act further connects each performer and represents the
cyclic nature of human relationships.

During the process each performer is affixed with a live surveillance
camera, which feeds live images to video monitors within the gallery
space.  This continues to complete the cycle and connect viewer back
to the action of each performer.

Artist statement:
If Eros and Thanatos is the symbolic conflict between love and death
(or the longing for completeness and Freud’s death drive), then this
performance installation is the process or daily routine of the space
between- life and death.  The word between indicates that one ends
and another begins.They are separate identities linked together,
creating relationship between them.  It is an exchange between
performers, as well as artist and audience. Between.



February 2007
Sugar-Free Atrophy

A group show by Nym, Watkins College of Art & Design students,
includes artists  Alison Boyd, Mai Lick, Ken Nakamura, Matt Christy,
Adolfo Davila, Coffey May, Christina Wing, Scott Wold, John Whitten
and Adam Nicholson.

Sugar free is a whimsical word on it's own, it implies not having to feel
guilty. It also refers to one of the absurd aspects of this society which
is our obsession with food, both the consumption and avoidance of it.



January 2007
Handful of Tranquility
Lauren Kussro

Lauren Kussro’s Handful of Tranquility is an installation piece that deals
primarily with the appreciation of the inherent design and beauty found
within the natural world. Kussro is interested in the creation of
interactive environments and active audience participation. Her
“chandeliers” and lotus flowers, carefully constructed from thin
Japanese rice paper, create a tranquil environment that almost makes
the viewer feel as if they are under water. The lotus flowers, hung by
transparent monofilament, appear to be floating.  The layered leaves
at the ceiling level reflect colors and shadows on the wall that add yet
another sensual element to the piece. Visitors to the gallery are
encouraged to lay on the floor underneath the piece for a different
vantage point.  

Artist Statement:
An underlying current in all of my work is the desire to express joy and
a sense of quietness and peace.  Art is a powerful medium of
expression that has the potential to affect people when they view it.  I
want to affect people in a beneficial way and have them walk away
from my work feeling spiritually and emotionally enriched by the
experience.


Previous Exhibits 2006
Heather Phillips
Eros and Thanatos
Sugar-Free Atrophy
Handful of Tranquility, Lauren Kussro
Tangle, 16x19", oil on canvas, 2006
December 2007
Plate Tone Printshop  


Plate Tone Printshop is a studio that offers membership to fine art
printmakers. The printshop uses exclusively non-toxic and low toxic
printmaking materials. Members of the shop create work including but
not limited to etching, collagraph, solarplate, monoprint, monotype,
silkscreen, polyester plate lithography, and marbling. Members have
access to the group’s facilities, which includes two etching presses,
large inking tables, a low toxic etching bath (Ferric Chloride as
opposed to Nitric Acid), a Solarplate exposure unit, and more.    

The shop provides the opportunity for artists to have access to this
specialized equipment, as well as to a network of other working
artists.  Through workshops, demonstrations and exhibitions, we hope
to foster a vibrant local printmaking community.  We currently have 18
members and are always interested in growing.    

This show features the work of the following Printshop members:

Jenny Baggs, Marleen De Bock, Kaaren Hirshowitz Engel, Pam Haile,
Lee Ann Hawkins, Lou Horner, Susan Hulme, Linda Illingworth, Patricia
Jordan, Reesha Leone, Lesley Patterson-Marx
Jaime Raybin

To find out more about the Printshop or inquire about membership, see
our website at
http://platetone.org.


November 2007
Kaaren Engel:InSideOutside

Kaaren Hirschowitz Engel is a painter and sculptor. Her sculptures are
created from her paintings, which have been deconstructed and
reconstructed as woven forms, or which are rolled into large tree-like
forms, towering up to 15 feet in height. In this installation, Kaaren
uses these sculptures to create an imaginary environment, a magical
forest or undersea grotto, which invites the viewer to observe from the
outside, then step “inside” the art.

When creating the paintings from which she forms the sculptures,
Kaaren uses trowels and palette knives to apply layers of paint to both
sides of the heavy, watercolor paper. She never knows which side will
be the “inside” of the sculpture, and because both sides are visible to
some degree, the delineation of “inside” and “outside” blurs, and
begins to lose meaning, as the sculptures twist and turn, spiraling and
looping back on themselves.

More information on the artist is available at
www.kaarenengel.com.



October 2007
Mark Sloniker
Beyond the Luminous Edge

Mark Sloniker is created a fantastical landscape within Twist. Born in
Wisconsin, Mark has always been interested in nature, music and art.
He currently works building puppets for major theme parks all over the
world.  

"I find myself creating beings in the air or things that loom just on the
edge of my peripheral vision.  There are creatures that live in the
ridges of my sweater and when I’m sad they slide out next to my ear
and whisper poetry by Octavio Paz.  There is a large furry beast that
lives crammed inside my closet.  It doesn’t speak.  We just stare at
each other.  When I walk through my neighborhood the emotions of
people in their homes take on form and float out of doors and
windows.  The air is full of life we cannot see."










September 2007
WHOLE MILK

Twist Gallery and mplsart.com are proud to present the art of four
rebel rousing Minneapolis Artists.

Utilizing a flood of colors, hard lines and graffiti inspired techniques;
Minneapolis artists
Isaac Arvold, John Grider, Eric Inkala and Drew
Peterson construct fantastical worlds where the beautiful and ugly
collide.  Whether in the form of a horned imp, skipping through a
sludge-soaked play-land or a mechanical cityscape, overrun with
organic shapes, the fictional tales depicted within the pieces may be
more telling of ourselves and our current place in history then we care
to admit.   


>See more mplsart.com artist images

>See pictures from the opening of the mural and reception




August 2007
1st Anniversary Mail Art Show

To celebrate our first anniversary, we sent out a call for mail art.
Anything anyone wanted to create and send, we plan to show in an
exhibit that opens on August 4th. More than one hundred pieces of art
from all over the world were on display.





June/July 2007
Twins
Kristina Arnold

An installation by artist Kristina Arnold entitled Twins will be on view at
Twist beginning June 2nd.  Recently taking on the role of "stepmom" in
a blended family and moving to a pristine suburb with Bradford Pear
lined streets, Arnold finds herself in unfamiliar territory.  Twins reflects
her personal experiences in this situation as well as larger societal
obsessions that uphold the iconography of the ideal suburban soccer


mom that she so strongly feels she is in contrast with.    Live potted
wildflowers grow toward plastic imitation “flowers” that stretch from
the ceiling. The dichotomy of real versus imitation is explored on many
different levels. While it echoes her current circumstances, she also
examines the unsustainability of what she calls the “strange middle
lands of suburban America.” “We continue to corral, manipulate, pave
over and remove our landscape. How long can we ignore the warning
signs of disappearing, lost or genetically mutated species?” she
wonders.
Twins, Kristina Arnold
Untitled, Jim Kaufman
Black Sheep Market, John Girder