LIGHTNESS OF BEING

LIGHTNESS OF BEING

MARCH 22 - MAY 3, 2013
April 19, 2013 6 PM - 8 PM
Reception for Joan Winter, April 19, 6 - 8 PM 6 - 8 PM

Joan Winter's sculptural works and prints are influenced by contemporary Japanese architecture, especially spaces emphasizing light and transparency as primary elements. Areas of investigation include ideas of light as the inner source of form and concepts of time relative to memory, physical changes and movement in space. Her subtle reductive use of materials includes light natural woods, translucent cast resin, and handmade paper, revealing forms of physical lightness and ethereal presence.

Statement:
Joan Winter's work explores the relationship between the visible and the invisible, between the materiality of the work and its inner meaning. Grounded in an inquiry of time; in terms of memory, physical changes, and movement in space, and light as a "giver of presence" within form. Recent studies in Japan are vital to Joan, having studied contemporary Japanese architecture for years, but the latest visit to see and experience the spiritual quietness and connection to nature was revealing to her. In this current culture of chaos, violence and turbulence, Joan looks for moments of quiet, harmony and serenity - a positive physical presence.

Working with the band saw as a drawing tool is a starting point for the three-dimensional pieces, Joan thinks of wood as a soft material, cutting through laminated blocks of wood based on quick drawings she refers to as "envelope sketches. She often casts forms in resin, introducing qualities of light and transparency, while maintaining the natural texture of wood in the casting - creating delicate forms of light and air.

Layering copper plates or silkscreens, prints are created on handmade paper one layer at a time to build surfaces that fuse color and texture. She often uses materials from her three dimensional work in the prints or overlaps ideas from one medium to the other. With her background in architecture, it seems natural to work in multiples, modules and series and think of her prints as three dimensional - looking though space, through the layers.

Art, for Joan, is still and silent, both physical and emotional, and lives by companionship and contemplation. Uniting all of her work is the desire to reveal the essential and timeless nature of form. She searches for ethereal qualities concealed between the layers of the seen and unseen - between light and shadow. Art has the power to bridge differences and express connections, however fragile, in the ways we are connected universally.

Ambiflux
2012
 

Push Slate II

Unfolding II

Awaji

Water and Stone

Sundown

Still Water
Soft ground etching
2008

Rise and Fall I
Color soft ground and aquatint
2008

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