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Down and Dirty at Duck Creek Arts

Installation view, photo courtesy of Gary Mamay

Down and Dirty, recent works by Bonnie Rychlak and Jeanne Silverthorne on view at Duck Creek Arts in East Hampton, NY, is a vaudevillian collection of subtly crafted works that tickle our collective psyche. The narrative of banal objects formed largely from wax and rubber elicits empathy, provokes thought and causes laughter, a complex jumble visually and emotionally. Arranged on the floor in the massive wooden barn, rejecting the hierarchical placement of art on pedestals, the works address a child-sized viewer, or perhaps an imp. They deftly implicate our inner child. The worn wood panels and flooring of the barn are complicit with Rychlak’s and Silverthorne’s works, collaborating to generate an experience in which the “feeling” or “haptic” sense is awakened, enriching the viewing experience. That Down and Dirty also blurs the boundaries between the works of the two artists is gleefully conspiratorial, the word defined here as “to breathe together.” It is a feminist gesture which includes an actual collaborative work titled Grate of Unintentional Consequences.

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Artists on Coping: Katherine Jackson

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

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Small Oils (Little Oil 79,80,81), glass, lightbox, 2019-20

Katherine Jackson has been bringing glass and light together for many years, often deriving them from drawing. Recently, in a series called Little Oil, (alluding to Big Oil), and/or Small Oils, as in oil painting, she has cast solid glass versions of vintage oil cans and set them on lightboxes. Recent shows include Park Place Gallery, 1 Gap Gallery, Odetta (Chelsea), and Odetta Harlem. She will participate in the sculpture show of the Venice Architectural Biennale (August 29, 2020 – February 16, 2021); Kunstraum LLC.

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