It appears that I havent written a newsletter or email as an artist for over 2 years… (shocked face) I guess much of my time has been spent looking after other artists at Melhop Gallery and making nomadic exhibitions - as a curator and gallery director. However here and there I have been carving out a little time to work on my own projects…

I am still finding it quite hard to believe the longest winter finally came to a melty end…and the latest one hasnt seemed to have got off the ground yet. Couch sized blocks of solid ice dropped off our roof in February, smashing all the outdoor furniture and the deck…grotesque car crash sounds as it creaked and groaned off. Snow this year is a non show.

Onward and upward…

Jenna Ferrey and I had a wonderful - albeit utterly freezing booth in Chelsea, at FUTURE FAIR NYC, showing artists Stewart Francis Easton and Alex Stern, whose work was wonderfully in conversation and sparked a lot of interest including an article in ARTILLERY MAGAZINE NYC.

Jenna Ferrey of Trotter & Sholer, Marina Grainger of the Artist Advisory, and Frances Melhop at Future Fair Booth 2. These two New York babes seem to handle the freezing temperatures better than I do ….

There has been some gREAT press coming out about some of my recent work … See below

Here below I am working in my winter studio slouchfit…. If you can bear to watch timelapse process videos – these new stitch drawings are what I have been working on whenever I can. The series is just starting.

COMMON THREADS

These life-size monotypes are a part of my quest to distill the essence of being human. Simple pressure prints of dresses are overlaid with embroidered contour drawings of female bodies. Each dress has stories and memories attached to it, held within it. These impressions are reaching for the familiar recollections absorbed into loved garments of friends and myself.

There was a lovely artist feature out in issue 37 of CREATE MAGAZINE July 2023 page 108-112 curated by Marina Grainger.

New Visionary Magazine NYC made a lovely interview and artist feature

NEW VISIONARY COLLECTIVE NYC issue 6 May 2023

An artist feature in the very new ARTS FOR HEARTS MAGAZINE issue 2, Feb 2023

THE HAND MAGAZINE Jan, 2023 published some of the Whispers work in issue 39

WHISPERS ACROSS TIME

Artist Statement

As children we would sit in a circle and start the whisper game.
Each child would whisper what they heard to the next child, by the time it reached the end of the circle the whisper had changed beyond recognition. These works are the visual equivalent.

The image of each girl transitions through various processes, to become another translation of a portrait. The pathway goes from living person, to a photographic fragment a record of their existence, to a scanned file, to a computer screen, to a blind contour drawing in ink, with oil paint intervention, to a monotype print.

In ways related to surrealist strategies, I reach for the essence of the subject or idea through deep observation, releasing visual control and allowing the unexpected to unfold.

All the elements of the whisper game exist in these pieces - transformation, surprise, amusement, and wonder. An entirely new image appears in the form of a monotype drawing.

Each evolves like a whisper across time….

Some of the series is still available through the gallery COLLECT ART area…. or you can see the whole series HERE ON THE ARTIST WEBSITE.

Whisper#6, Whispers Across Time… series, 2021
Monotype, 18” x 18” ink + oil paint on BFK Rives
PRIVATE COLLECTION

Whisper #9
Whispers Across Time… series, 2021
Monotype, 18” x 18”
Ink on BFK Rives

KELLEE MORGADO and I collaborated on an artist book with the Black Rock Press, DONT CUT YOUR HAIR IT’S BEAUTIFUL. My photography and an intaglio print KEEPSAKE, along with a little written piece is inside a very tricky and incredibly designed trio of books that interlock and open in a variety of ways. The artist book has been acquired by the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art. Find here a video by Yuka Petz, in Season Three, Artist’s Books UNSHELVED, an ongoing video series exploring selected pieces from the Cynthia Sears Artist’s Books Collection at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art.

I worked on a print exchange with the OPEN PRESS PROJECT… these guys are completely brilliant! You buy or print a tiny 3D printing press and make a printed image on paper 3 inches by 3 inches. It goes into a travelling exhibition through Europe and is published in a beautiful book. Super jazzed about how it came out!

And finally the Odd Girls were exhibited this year at the 52nd Annual Art Faculty Exhibition at Truckee Meadows Community College, NV, USA. Odd girls are stitch drawings - a related body of work created at the same time as the Whispers Across Time…. monotypes.