Each season brings a new thematic exhibition to Lilienthal Gallery at 23 Emory Place. The fall exhibition, “Metamorphosis,” opens tonight from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm in conjunction with First Friday. Hungarian artist Eszter Bornemisza, one of the three artists featured in the exhibition, will be present and will present a brief description of her work at 6:00 pm. Dress code for the event (fun, but not mandatory) includes “exquisite autumn colors with gold accessories.”
The thematic focus is on changing of the seasons, whether in nature or in our personal lives. Colors change as a quiet evolution happens, portending something different. These artists make extensive use of earth tones and their work focuses on the power and energy of change. The mediums vary — none of the works are traditional oil paintings — but collectively build a narrative throughout the exhibition. Works may be found from the floor to the wall to the ceiling of the gallery in a dizzying display of the creative spirit. “These works connect the Earth and life force with elemental materials and structures.”
The aforementioned Eszter Bornemisza, whose work has been featured in solo exhibitions in North America, Europe, and Asia, utilizes plant-made fiber and discarded man-made materials to produce her work. Trained as a mathematician, she became interested in exploring the world more organically. She harvests materials personally, incorporating them into her art. Whether reaching out from the wall in multi-layers or suspended from the ceiling to be engaged from all angles, the work references its previous life as simple materials, while assuming its newly formed incarnation.
Her work often reflects her life in Budapest and contains an urban sensibility. It sometimes mirrors urban development, while revealing it from a different perspective. The duality of the reality of cities as places where people gather, as well as places where people and groups may be torn apart is fused together. “Her practice of experimentation and development of ideas is a metaphor for the artist’s journey to finding her own identity.”
Martha Rieger, a Brazilian artist based in Tel Aviv, studied extensively in China, learning “the hand-forming process of hollow ceramic sculptures.” The result is seen in this exhibition from the cocoon-like objects suspended from the ceiling to the egg-shaped works on the floor of the gallery. Both the cocoons and eggs represent the tension of coming birth; the anxiety, the potential, and the hope.
Fascinated with the protection within the egg, the womb, the cocoon, prior to birth, but with the necessarily accompanying restriction, her work gives voice to the freedom delivered by birth, but also the loss. The interior of the cocoons, now empty call for the outside world, as well as the patron of this exhibition to get close and explore the once closed interior.
Finally, German artist Alke Reeh geometric works carry the theme through designs that might be found from butterfly wings to cathedral windows. The multi-dimensional works in fabric and paper carry the spirit of origami to a larger scale. With the geometric design, the texture of the materials, and the dimensionality of the work, new complexities present themselves as the work is engaged.
The denim utilized in the works undergoes its own metamorphosis, from a practical textile, to a symbol of “cool,” and now to a work of art. “Reeh’s works are pure and raw
– the edges are unhemmed, and individual threads hang down. These contrasts of precise uniformity against the unfinished edges create tension and possibility.” Within the works exists both allusions to meditation and spirituality, grounded in the most common realities of living.
The exhibition, as always, is challenging, interesting, and quite a bit different from the norm. It’s worth exploring and tonight offers the first opportunity to do so. The gallery is open Wednesday through Sunday from noon to 6:00 pm, and by appointment.
While you are in the area, be sure not to miss Pivot Point Gallery next door and check out the recently profiled Design AF and French Fried Vintage all located a few steps from each other in the increasingly love Emory Place.