The Chazan Gallery is presenting an exhibition of work by Mo Kelman and Luis Alonso from Friday, April 2 to Sunday, April 18, 2010. There will be an opening reception for the artists on Friday, April 9, from 5 – 7 p.m. The public is invited.

Sculptor Maureen Kelman creates organic, tensile structures that explore a tension and balance suggestive of the organic world that inspires her. She prefers to work with a small range of materials and techniques; the simplification of this process allows her “to contrive a world of forms made by tying knots, lashing corners, stitching and stretching fabric skins.” Of extreme importance in her work is the record of marks and mechanics of making that develop in these unique sculptural forms. “Nothing is hidden. I join parts with cords that wrap and bind. I leave trails of needle holes that tell of rows of sewing. A season of rhythmic work is physical and tangible.”

A recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Kelman has exhibited at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Korea’s Cheongju International Craft Bienale, and Brown University’s Bell Gallery. She is currently on the faculty of the Community College of Rhode Island and has also taught at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and the Massachusetts College of Art.

Luis Alonso creates drawings developed from a free play of line. The drawings are largely informed by Alonso’s personal fascination with the natural form, “animate or inanimate, orderly or chaotic.” In this particular body of work, Alonso presents work that was initially inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawn investigations of the fluid movements of water and air. Studying this subject matter led Alonso to a drawing process in which “movement, as energy, initiates patterns which create form, from which, through the ongoing accumulation of incidents and accidents, I arrive at elemental topographies.”

Alonso is on the faculties of the Rhode Island School of Design and Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, New York. His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions, including Chazan Gallery's 2007 Drawing Matters show. He received his BFA in Illustration from RISD and his MFA in Painting from Rutgers University.
Chazan Gallery @ Wheeler is located at 228 Angell Street in Providence, RI 02906. Gallery hours: 12 – 5pm Tuesday through Saturday, 3 – 5pm Sunday. The gallery is closed on Mondays. There is no admission charge. Phone: 401.421.9230 www.chazangallery.org

 

Mo Kelman, Darkside, Detail

Luis Alonso