This dewdrop world, latex on wall, approx. 13′ x 48′

I finally have some images of my finished work at the Foothills Art Center. This dewdrop world is a site-specific piece that responds to the space, and investigates the intersection of architecture and the natural world. Here is my statement for the piece:

Upon entering the gallery space at the Foothills Art Center, the first thing I noticed was the silhouette of a tree within the space of one of the stained glass windows.  In my work, I am interested in describing this type of intersection of the natural world and built environments.  This conflation of landscape and architecture describes a subjective experience of the inhabited landscape and the human impact on it.  The title for the wall painting, This dewdrop world, is taken from a poem written by the 18th century Japanese poet Issa:

This dewdrop world
It is but a dewdrop
And yet – and yet

This haiku describes the tension between the knowledge of the illusionary nature of the world, and yet its strong pull on our emotions and consciousness.   In this piece, I also explore this tension; the complex image that both mimics and camouflages a cast shadow in the window of the gallery space equally invites a belief in the illusion, and an attempt to deconstruct and understand how it was made.  The poem and the painting also describe both a longing and a loss: a longing for the pleasure inherent in the illusion, and a loss in the knowledge that it is only temporary.

Stark at the Foothills Art Center will be open until July 3 – just two more weeks to view the piece!

Stark was recently reviewed in the Westword.

lit, ink and gouache on paper, 5″ x 7″

I am participating again this summer in the 100 days project, an online collaborative started by my friend (and past collaborator) Carianne Mack Garside.  She started the project in 2008 as a way to structure her summer of production, and soon her solo endeavor had turned into a group of artists from around the country (and now internationally) who are producing one thing a day – a poem, song, painting, drawing, photograph, video – and posting them on individual blogs that are linked to a central website.

My individual blog is http://tenweeks.typepad.com, the same address where I blogged about my fall residency at Anderson Ranch.  Each day during this 100 days I will post a new 5″ x 7″ ink and gouache drawing; the drawing above is the first I’ve made for the project.  These drawings are derived from the 100 photographs that I took last summer for the project, and are also in dialogue with the work being created each day by the other project participants.  You can find links to each of their work at the central site for the project, http://onehundreddays.net. Follow my blog to see each of the drawings this summer as I produce them.

The exhibition STARK at the Foothills Art Center is opening tonight from 5:30 – 8, and the exhibition will run through July 3.  For this show, curator Michael Chavez asked me to create a large-scale installation that incorporated the stained glass windows in the exhibition space, which was recently renovated. A former church, the walls were recently renovated with crisp new drywall, which highlights the orginal stained glass. I have been busily at work in the space for the past two weeks, painting an image that I created from the pattern within the windows, duplicated and overlayed with that of a willow tree. STARK features 5 local artists: Nathan Abels, Chris Perez, Monique Crine, Steve Legg, and myself, all working in black and white. In addition to the large wall painting, I will also have a new small ink and gouache drawing, seen below.

In other news, Tonia Bonnell and I recently had an eloquent and glowing review of the Ironton exhibition by Kyle MacMillan of the Denver Post.  You can read the article here.

And, I will be participating in the 100 days project again this summer, started by my friend and painter Carianne Mack Garside. Check back for link to the blog – we will be starting the project May 26.

The Ironton show, presence and absence is up, and we have had a great response:  a good crowd with many friends and colleagues at our opening and the first of our events in the space, a yoga class in the gallery yesterday morning.  This weekend is also Doors Open Denver, an event that highlights architectural spaces in Denver.  This year’s tour is based around the theme Redux/Redo and is showcasing renovated or recycled spaces.  Ironton is participating, and the gallery and studio spaces are open 10-4 both Saturday and Sunday.

The image above is the new wall piece I made for the Ironton space, trace. For this exhibition, I was interested in working with new imagery, and a sense of subtlety.  The past wall paintings have been very bold, with high contrast.  And since the new piece in the planning stages for the Foothills Art Center will continue in this vein, I wanted to take this opportunity to work with a different aesthetic, equally native to my vocabulary.  In beginning trace, I knew the image I was interested in, and that I wanted to use a back corner and the window in the gallery space that has often been viewed as problematic – in other words, letting the piece live in the least likely location.  For the color, I came with a quart of paint, and quickly realized that I would need to adjust and find a hue that was more related to the color of the wall, light, and shadows.  I find that it is most interesting to me during the day, with the interplay of natural light and shadow to some extent confusing the shadows with the paint. But, I will continue to photograph it at different times of day, and offer some other views of the piece in different lighting situations.

Here are a few more installation shots of the show, as well as our opening and the yoga event.

presence and absence, an exhibition with Tonia Bonnell and I will open April 9 at Ironton in Denver.

Our press release for the exhibition reads:

presence and absence, an exhibition of new work by Tonia Bonnell and Mindy Bray, centers on the theory of emergence as a shared sensibility.  Emergence reveals the interdependence of whole and part; the way in which each whole contains individuals, and each individual contributes to the creation of a whole.  The shape and energy of a hurricane, the geometry and function of a beehive, or the flight pattern of a murmur of starlings are all examples of emergent behavior, which describes a shared process in Tonia and Mindy’s work.  Tonia begins her images with a consistent and basic mark, allowing an image to emerge from the massing and layering of individual parts, and Mindy begins with a whole photographic image, and through scrutiny, disassembles it into an invented, particular vocabulary of individual shapes.  In effect, Tonia’s work is constructed from the part to the whole, and Mindy’s work is a sort of deconstruction, from the whole to the part.  In both Tonia and Mindy’s works, the strength is that through the process of viewing, the images oscillate freely between the two states; whole image and particular mark.  presence and absence will open Friday, April 9 at Ironton, with a reception from 6-9pm, and will run until May 15. There will be an artist talk with Tonia and Mindy for First Friday, May 7th at 7 pm.

fencing, 11″ x 15″, ink and gouache on paper.

I recently finished a new small drawing that will be included in the upcoming Ironton show, presence and absence. I am currently at work on another larger stretched paper painting that will also be included. The Ironton show is coming together, as Tonia Bonnell and I make some of the final decisions; title, postcards, press release. I will continue to add new information on the show as it coalesces.

Also, I would like to mention that I am going to be making another large wall painting – this the largest yet – at the Foothills Art Center for the exhibition Stark which will open May 14. Stark will include other local artist who are working in black and white, or otherwise address stark as a concept. I will also add new information about this project as I begin to work on imagery and placement in the space.

The opening at the Rule Gallery on Feb 5 was well-attended – thank you to all who came out for it. I finished the wall painting, Displace, above, just in time for Kyle MacMillan of the Denver Post to come view the show.  The Denver Post ran his article on Sunday, Feb 7, covering both the Rule curated group show and an artist-curated exhibition at Plus Gallery. The article featured several full color photographs – including one of my wall painting – but can be viewed in text-only form on the Post’s website, here. Of my work, MacMillan stated:

Mindy Bray, Rule. Working from photographs of rushing, cascading water, this Denver artist abstracts the imagery to its rawest yet still recognizable essence.

Bray creates simple yet complex compositions of flowing forms and interplays of negative and positive space that she has realized in an assortment of media, including “Disperse,” a wonderfully sculptural, 6-foot-square wall hanging cut from felt.

Also, Nathan Abels created a pdf catalog of the exhibition, which includes all of the images in both his solo exhibition and his curated group show, as well as an exhibition essay and curatorial statement. You can download the catalog at Nathan’s website, here.

This past weekend (and beginning of the week, between teaching) I’ve been busy at work on a new wall painting at the Rule Gallery for the upcoming show, Natural Causes, that opens this Friday.  The new piece is titled Displace, and uses the same color pallette as Water Feature from Anderson Ranch, and is also based on an image of water moving.  This particular image was taken from a small stream in Snowmass Village that had a footpath following it, and, I believe, was somewhat directed through constructed boulder fields to create waterfalls.  I am interested in how this image is beginning to become more dynamic, and includes extreme switches between positive and negative space, so that the two are in constant flux, constantly displacing one another; just as the natural and the manmade elements of the image’s origins are displacing one another, arriving at some hybrid envrionment.  Please come see the fiished piece at the opening at 6pm at the Rule Gallery, or here in the next post for those out of town.

Nathan Abels is a Denver artist whose work I admire, and who I have found myself alongside in several group shows. He is having a solo exhibition at Rule Gallery this February, and is curating a group show to share the space. He invited me to be a part of this group show, and I am excited to be making a new wall piece for the space, as well as showing one of my recent felt pieces from Anderson Ranch, Disperse. I will also have a small goucahe drawing on mylar with the grouping.

There will be an opening reception for the show at Rule on Friday, February 5 from 6 – 9pm.

Visit the Rule Gallery site for more information, and for directions.  http://www.rulegallery.com/.

Also, visit Nathan’s site and see more of his work at http://nathanabels.wordpress.com/.

Welcome to my new website! I am hoping that this new format will allow me to keep you up to date on what is happening in my studio, as well as shows, and things that I am looking and thinking about. Here is an image of my recent wall painting at Anderson Ranch. It was a completely ephemeral piece; I started painting on a Monday, finished late on that Friday night, invited people to view it on Saturday, and on Sunday, painted over it. I enjoyed the opportunity to explore this format again, and to see some new avenues I can take it. I hope to use more gallery spaces in this way in the future.