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Two stunning exhibits opened February 22 at the Museum of Contemporary Craft: Mandy Greer's Dare alla Luce and Darrel Morris' Large Works 1999-2008. Greer is a sculptor and mixed-media artist who builds large-scale installations intended to create full body experiences. Morris works in thread and fabric to create embroidered and appliquéd portraits and scenes.
At the preview, I was struck by the sheer scale of Greer's work. When entering the exhibit, I felt as if I walked into two connected worlds: earth and space. It's only when you get close to Greer's work, however, and examine the intricate detail that you realize Greer creates worlds within worlds. The installation as a whole is one world, but each piece in the installation is a world in and of itself.
The same is true for Morris' Large Works. The scale of his embroidered scenes is stunning, but it's the closer examination of each piece that reveals the individual elements that make up the greater story.
If you have the time, visit the Museum of Contemporary Craft and view these two exhibits. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Mandy Greer
Dare alla Luce
January 22 - May 31, 2009
Translated from Italian, "dare alla luce" is an idiomatic expression for giving birth: "to give to the light." Drawing upon late Renaissance artist Jacopo Tintoretto's painting The Origin of the Milky Way for inspiration, Greer recounts her own version of the Roman myth in which the milk of Juno's breast rose to the sky to create the galaxy. Through countless small gestures of her craft, Greer employs humble handicraft processes and materials, executing her work through crochet, braiding, sewing and beading processes that use yarn, beads, shells, feathers and more. Merging the mythical and the mundane, Greer collapses the language and materials of the ordinary with the spectacular and the epic. The resulting work intertwines objects and space, resulting in an exuberant, sensual and visceral installation.
Museum of Contemporary Craft presents the first West Coast exhibition to focus on Darrel Morris' large-scale embroidery works. While Morris is best known for intimate and nostalgic snapshot-sized pieces - such as the colorful and heavily embroidered and appliquéd works featured in the Museum's New Embroidery: Not Your Grandma's Doily (2006) - the works included in this new exhibition reveal a shift in scale, color and line. The Large Works also signal a departure from autobiographical subject matter to an investigation of the public sphere. Using figures clipped from the print media, Morris' large pieces are line drawings with thread, sharply graphic and monochromatic. Measuring six feet or more, the nearly life-sized imagery envelops and draws the viewer into the work to become an active participant.
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Museum of Contemporary Craft
724 Northwest Davis Street
503.223.2654
info@MuseumofContemporaryCraft.org
Seasonal Hours:
Tuesday-Saturday 11 AM to 6 PM
First Thursdays 11 AM to 8 PM
Review: Mandy Greer, Darrel Morris
