All I Want is Everything is a solo show of Heather Garland's recent work.
The show will be up from October 14th- November 16th with a reception for the artist on Friday October 19th. from 6-8pm
Kent Place Gallery@
Kent Place School
42 Norwood Avenue
Summit, NJ 07902-0308
The Gallery is open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday or by appointment with Director Ken Weathersby. For more information, please call (908) 273-0900, ext. 208.
Garland’s installation includes lush paintings, selected found and reworked objects, and drawn shapes and written words that seem to signal private emotion.
Her artistic vocabulary is omnivorous. It seems engagingly direct, but also holds layers of complexity. Garland has said, “My work is not straightforward. Stacking objects, images and materials I’ve amassed over the years and placing them into arrangements is part of my process. Everything in the studio has to get really messy, dirty, and connected in ideas, color and materials… I like the stark contrast of warm ebullient things such as ribbons, confetti or Christmas lights against concrete...” Her subject matter includes dolls and toys, along with a large accumulation of other found materials. “These are objects that recall childhood, but not mine. I’m using them as vehicles to communicate feelings in my adult female life.”
Garland’s painting is a robust and open-ended artistic statement. Her use of images and objects from childhood, including dolls and fictional entities like Godzilla, or Barbie, along with her recourse to emphatically inscribed rows of hearts or simply-drawn flowers, represent an artist adopting a radical and laudably vulnerable stance. She refuses to deal in an artistic language that is strictly "serious" and nominally grown up, and in that regard she risks being dismissed by the superficial viewer. By refusing to separate these terms out, and moving ahead with an ambitious intent that’s broad, inclusive and doesn’t quarantine "high" subject matter and style from "low", she creates a space to talk about all kinds of contradictions of real experience. The paintings seem to be about pleasure, pain, memory of childhood, and living with present, adult complication and ambiguity. Furthermore, she is just a talented painter. Her marks, color choices and general touch carry weight and conviction.
--Ken Weathersby
Install shots from show:
42 Norwood Avenue
Summit, NJ 07902-0308
The Gallery is open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday or by appointment with Director Ken Weathersby. For more information, please call (908) 273-0900, ext. 208.
Garland’s installation includes lush paintings, selected found and reworked objects, and drawn shapes and written words that seem to signal private emotion.
Her artistic vocabulary is omnivorous. It seems engagingly direct, but also holds layers of complexity. Garland has said, “My work is not straightforward. Stacking objects, images and materials I’ve amassed over the years and placing them into arrangements is part of my process. Everything in the studio has to get really messy, dirty, and connected in ideas, color and materials… I like the stark contrast of warm ebullient things such as ribbons, confetti or Christmas lights against concrete...” Her subject matter includes dolls and toys, along with a large accumulation of other found materials. “These are objects that recall childhood, but not mine. I’m using them as vehicles to communicate feelings in my adult female life.”
Garland’s painting is a robust and open-ended artistic statement. Her use of images and objects from childhood, including dolls and fictional entities like Godzilla, or Barbie, along with her recourse to emphatically inscribed rows of hearts or simply-drawn flowers, represent an artist adopting a radical and laudably vulnerable stance. She refuses to deal in an artistic language that is strictly "serious" and nominally grown up, and in that regard she risks being dismissed by the superficial viewer. By refusing to separate these terms out, and moving ahead with an ambitious intent that’s broad, inclusive and doesn’t quarantine "high" subject matter and style from "low", she creates a space to talk about all kinds of contradictions of real experience. The paintings seem to be about pleasure, pain, memory of childhood, and living with present, adult complication and ambiguity. Furthermore, she is just a talented painter. Her marks, color choices and general touch carry weight and conviction.
--Ken Weathersby
Install shots from show:
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