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Hidden & Revealed     

For Immediate Release
For more information contact:
Julie Ann Cavnor 410-962-8565 / jcavnor@mdartplace.org

Exhibition Dates: July 29 – September 6, 2008
Gallery Talk:  Friday, August 8, 6 pm / Reception, 7 pm

Participating Artists: Michael Iampieri, Kevin Kepple, Dean Kessmann, Michelle La Perrière, Randi Reiss-McCormack and Hadieh Shafie

Baltimore, Maryland—Maryland Art Place (MAP) is pleased to present Hidden & Revealed, anexhibition that provides insight into an artist’s creative process. Featuring the work of six artists working two dimensionally in a wide range of media, curator Peter Dubeau speculates on how an artist decides what to conceal and what to reveal in their work and how these images ultimately interact. Below, Dubeau thoughtfully discusses the work in the exhibition.

Michael Iampieri’s recent series of ink pencil drawings are directly traced images from a diverse group of magazines, including The National Enquirer, Time, Latin Inches, Men’s Health, and Cooking Light.  In these works, Iampieri’s collective recordings of imagery become web-like in their complexity and density.  For the artist, initially creating these drawings is a meditative process, which after a certain amount of work  becomes a series of creative decisions.  At first, the viewer may sense the work is random and arbitrary in terms of its composition, but these drawings are carefully considered works, calibrated to reflect each magazine’s content and emphasis.  Taken together as a series, they allow the viewer to compare and contrast each magazine’s photographic content, diversity, and scale.

Kevin Kepple’s abstract paintings are created using glue media, ink and varnish.  He starts with detailed drawings, mapping out the composition of each painting.  He then begins an intensive layering process that is painstakingly calculated to reproduce each element of the composition as he marks specific areas across the painting surface with a mixture of ink and glue.  This process is repeated over and over again as he slowly builds each painting with richly textured and painted surfaces that are filled with overlapping, concentric, repetitive forms and geometric designs.  Through Kepple’s elaborate use of layering, the finished paintings are filled with depth and radiate energy and movement.    

Below the Surface is a series of photographs inspired by Dean Kessmann’s memory of helping his father build their family house.  These photographs document what’s below the surface of a wall, recording the necessary materials such as tape and joint compound, as well as the planning and thought processes needed to construct a wall, as evidenced by the calculations and notations of the actual workers.  Like an x-ray of a painting that reveals an artist’s technique or rejected imagery, these photographs reveal the underlying mental and physical labor that go into the construction of what is ultimately a smooth and pristine wall surface.  In formal terms, the images have been digitally manipulated by the artist’s use of cropping and contrast to enhance each print’s abstract quality and originality.       

Michelle La Perrière’s selection of work is from a larger series of sequential monoprints and was created during a residency in which the artist’s experience of watching spring come alive from her studio window was tempered by the remembrance of her brother who had suddenly passed away. Titled From River Suite for Vincent Alain La Perrière and Remy Colette La Perrière Abarbanel: 15 Prayers, the artist builds a pictorial lexicon that includes dress forms, windows, cherries, trees, birds, and rocks.  During the time this work was created, many of these images reappeared after a number of years of hibernation. Repeated ghost-like images float through this series, alive with the artist’s sensitivity to events and memories, while exemplifying the fluidity of her creative process.  Any one of these images is pulled through the press and can be repeated or withdrawn at any time.  Once the prints have been made, La Perriere further develops each print by hand using mixed-media to enhance and/or cover specific areas with superimposed imagery.

Randi Reiss-McCormack has loosely based her three new mixed media paintings on nursery rhyme narratives and has chosen to present them in a circular format that recalls a spinning top.  Using multiple layers of paint and various media, Reiss-McCormack explores the rhythmic movement and cyclical nature of each painting through the repetition and fragmentation of image, pattern, color and texture.  Themes such as nostalgia, humor, kitsch, and everyday life abound.  Although these densely packed works explode with images, Reiss-McCormack is able to create a feeling of control amid the chaos, as she extends the narrative beyond the nursery rhymes through layering appropriated and reconstructed images.

Born in Iran, Hadieh Shafie, uses Farsi text (specifically the word love) but manipulates it, stripping it of its meaning and sound as it becomes more of a calligraphic mark in this new series of paintings and mixed media works.  During her working process, the artist applies thin layers of pigment below and above her abstracted text, thereby creating a hazy color quality that recedes and emerges throughout each painting’s multiple layers.  In two of her works, the repetitive text reads horizontally, referencing books, newspapers (columns) and becomes concentrated in places, creating a veil-like quality.  The third piece, a diptych, is formatted differently.  One panel features painted text in concentric circles suggesting movement; the other panel—textual paper scrolls rolled tightly into a square frame—explores ideas of personal history and memory. This body of work represents Shafie’s search for identity and spirituality.       

Please join us at 6 pm, Friday, August 8 for a Gallery Talk with the exhibition curator and participating artists, followed by a Reception at 7 pm.

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Maryland Art Place (MAP) is a not-for-profit center for contemporary art established in 1981 to: develop and maintain a dynamic environment for regional artists to exhibit their work, nurture and promote new ideas and new forms, and facilitate rewarding exchanges between artists and the public through educational leadership.  Having served over 5,600 artists throughout its twenty-seven year history, MAP remains dedicated to promoting the talents of new and emerging artists and making contemporary art accessible and a means for regular community enrichment. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 am to 5 pm. There is no admission charge to enter the gallery or to participate in any of MAP’s regularly scheduled programs and events. To learn more, visit: www.mdartplace.org