Tuesday, September 9, 2008

SOMETHING OLD --- TRANSFORMED!

New works by Jane Derby
At the Gallery from September 10, 2008 through October 12, 2008

Sandra Whitton Gallery

253 Ontario Street

Kingston, Ontario
613-531-0968


Gallery hours: Wednesday - Friday 10 am - 6 pm
Saturday and Sunday 11 am - 6 pm


Come and meet Jane ~ Friday, September 12, from 5 - 8 pm.


Come into the presence of lath and plaster transformed into an art form in the most capable hands of Jane Derby.

In works reminiscent of the art of Nicholas de Stael, Jane uses the materials of days gone by -- lath and plaster -- to reveal "history, and to contemporize its austere beauty."











In these reliefs we can see the function of the lath and plaster transformed into works that realign the strips that have been recycled from old walls and barns. These building elements, no longer in practice, when exposed "show the skeletal structure of the lath [as] the substrate of a specific time and place."

Thus we learn to see with new eyes what has gone before. "The plaster oozing out between the strips of lath has a living quality, as if it were frozen in time."














The window of time,












the structures of the past,









evolving into "more sculptural and organic" forms depicting landscapes using this "pedestrian building material" to express the beauty of mundane treasures into striking works of art.








Clouds and skies have been "considered cliched subject matter for the better part of a century, and so, to a certain extent, has the Romantic discourse around nature and beauty.

The intent of my work is to recontextualize both the subject matter and the material, putting them into another framework of meaning, created partially by the unexpected contrast between the fluidity of clouds, or the figure, and the inflexibility of lath."

As well, there is also the sense of exposing the hidden and ignored.



I am certainly intrigued by these works by Jane Derby, and I believe you will be both impressed and enlightened to see them in person.

A little piece of history will be yours.





As well, Jane will be at the gallery on September 25th during the Art After Dark (scroll down a little here) event in downtown Kingston.