Contemporary Art and Culture
Thomas Motley’s first novel, The Art of Farming: Sketches of a Life in the Country, is rooted in stewardship—a shared responsibility for the earth, animals, and one another. This theme has become more central to his paintings over time, though respect for nature has always been part of his work. His non-fiction writing and lectures on organic farming have also reflected this idea.
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In her installation-based exhibition titled I Make My Own Weather at the MAC in Dallas, Bonny Leibowitz explores the validity of social constructs and the reliability of acquired or assumed perceptions, implying separateness, otherness and disconnection. Leibowitz’s work utilizes and expounds upon the landscape painting traditions of idealized histories, such as the Hudson River School, Romanticism, and Baroque. The installations act as deconstructed paintings, as though walking through fragments of represented landscapes—a tree root painted epoxy green, an Astro turf tarp in the shape of a pond, a peeling away of a blue sky.
Continue reading “I Make My Own Weather at the MAC”Thomas Motley in conversation with Elisa Lendvay and Sara Cardona
The unique design and location of the Beatrice M. Haggerty Gallery at The University of Dallas proved a most fitting space for the exuberant content of Sara Cardona and Elisa Lendvay’s exhibit, titled Meridian. Picture a giant treehouse, spanning the edge of a steep ravine, extended over a leafy canopy of thick post oak trees. From the gallery’s atrium entry, visitors enjoy a dramatic bird’s-eye view of a sylvan campus below. Under gallery director John Watson’s sculptor’s eye, Cardona’s and Lendvay’s lively celebration of nature, a Gaia shout-out, projected joyous meridian energy-lines from gallery to surrounding woods. Meridian expressed the artists’ shared interests in earth’s natural shapes and cycles, regeneration of discarded or out-of-fashion cultural designs and hardware, and celebration of movement, of dance.
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Bonny Leibowitz makes site responsive sculptural installations with painterly sensibility – they hover in the air, spill on the floor, or sprawl on the walls. Her love of Baroque compositions, Abstract Expressionist gestures is underscored throughout her work. Bonny Leibowitz had a long-standing interest in the illusory nature of experience and the supposition of stability. In Terra Unfirma, her most recent body of work, she tackles what it means to deconstruct expectations and perceptions by using a variety of materials which play off one another – natural appearing manufactured, manufactured appearing natural – constructing environments which may feel ephemeral, eternal, fleeting, solid, light or looming at the same time. The artist refers to this quote: “Everything worth knowing is cloaked in paradox because everything substantial defies being revealed in its totality” – Mark Nepo
During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.
Bonny Leibowitz explores in her work the inner workings of consciousness, the transitory nature of thought and questions the construct of certainty. She utilizes a variety of materials including Tyvek, Plaster, Vinyl, Fosshape, Dura-lar, foam, wax, pigments, ink, found objects and more. Her solo exhibitions include Cohn Drennan Contemporary – Dallas, TX, The Museum of Art – Wichita Falls, TX, Art Cube Gallery – Laguna Beach, CA, Liliana Bloch Gallery – Dallas, TX, No.4 Studio – Brooklyn, NY and The Neon Heater – Findlay, OH. Originally from Philadelphia, Leibowitz lives in Dallas, TX. where she maintains her studio practice.
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