About the show

ILLUMInations is the title of the 54th Venice Biennale.  The Biennale is a large conempoarary art exhibit composed of exhibits from artists from all over the world.  The title is poetic in itself expressing both concrete (illuminating poetry and exhibits, structure of exibit separated into nations) and figurative interpretations (wish to inspire different ways of thinking and looking at the world.) The exhibition runs from June 4 through November 27, 2011.  It is open 10am until 6pm on Tuesday through Sunday.  The admission fee was 20 euro (roughly $30).

I will be in front of G. Simone’s restaurant along “Brick Street” with more than  75 other artists. There will be demos on painting, pottery, woodcarving, and glass blowing.

On display will be:

• Lunar Locust (the latest painting)
• Greeting cards of butterfly paintings
• Small to large prints ($45 and up, matted & ready to frame)

WHERE:
112B S. Main St. Zionsville, IN 46077

WHEN:
Friday, June 24 · 6pm – 9pm

Reply to the Facebook Event if you think you might come.

This Friday I will give a presentation about my Patterns in Flight series that is currently on display at Asbury University. Along with me, artist, Joel Klepac, will be talking about his work which is also on display. Current faculty will also talk about their work in the Faculty Exhibit.

Asbury University Artist Talk 2011
Friday, March 4, 5:30pm
McCreless Fine Arts Building, Rm 203
RSVP by March 2 to fmontgomery@asbury.edu

Dinner will be catered and door prizes will be given away. Donations will be accepted from non-students.

For more information about the current show visit the Patterns in Flight at Asbury announcement on my blog or the Patterns in Flight press release on the Asbury University web site.

Send me an email if you are in the area and plan to attend, so I can look out for you.

My alma mater, Asbury University (formerly Asbury College) has asked me to show my butterfly series, Patterns in Flight. The show will be on view from January 15 until March 25. The twelve-piece series is located in the Kenyon Room of the Morrison-Kenyon Student Center.

The hours of the center are:
Mon-Thu. 7:30 a.m. – 12:30 a.m.
Fri. 7:30 a.m. – 1 a.m.
Sat. 10 a.m. – 1 a.m.
Sun. 1:30 p.m. – 12:30 a.m.

I have also been asked to give a presentation about my series to faculty, students and the public on Friday, March 4. The location has yet to be announced. Please contact me for the specific location and time.

Patterns in Flight
January 15 – March 25, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011 – Series presentation and discussion
Morrison-Kenyon Student Center
Asbury University
1 Macklem Dr.
Wilmore, Kentucky 40390

Patterns in Flight is a twelve-piece oil painting series that provokes thoughts on time, refined beauty, and overcoming struggles. It contains a variety of butterfly species: painted ladies, a blue morpho, malachites, a citris swallowtail, postmans, a variable cracker and a zebra longwing.

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Rachel Steely (James) has always been drawn to natural, organic objects and chooses to portray them with oil on textured surfaces. Often, she presents her subject in “dynamic still life” with a shift of time through movement or growth-decay. Steely is originally from the rust-belt city of Rockford, Illinois. She left the manufacturing town to study fine art at Asbury College and find inspiration among the rolling hills and forests of rural Kentucky. Although consistently representational, she strives to create subtlety layered visual and philosophical metaphors. In 2005, Steely returned to the country’s heartland where she is active in the local art community of Indianapolis, Indiana. Next to oil painting, her greatest passion is helping others appreciate art by teaching private classes. She leads and inspires students of all ages from her studio.

Early this summer, I was approached by the Arts Council of Indianapolis to produce six works similar to my Patterns In Flight butterfly series for their 2010 ARTI awards. The ARTI Awards are presented annually to celebrate and commemorate the outstanding support of the arts in our community. This year five ARTI awards are being presented to businesses and individuals this Friday at the Start With Art event. To attend Start With Art, register at the Arts Council of Indianapolis’ website. The event is from 11:30 am – 1:30 pm on Friday, September 3, 2010 at the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown. Individual tickets are $60.

The six works commissioned by Arts Council of Indianapolis include:

• Dusk, Oil on canvas, 14″ x 14″
  
• Wandering Ochre, Oil on canvas, 8″ x 12″
  
• Summer Flight, Oil on canvas, 12″ x 9″
  
• Long Wing, Long Life, Oil on canvas, 14″ x 14″
  
• Appear, Disappear, Oil on canvas, 10″ x 10″
  

For a larger version of these paintings, visit the entire series, Patterns in Flight, in my portfolio. Two paintings, Long Wing, Long Life and Dusk, are hung diagonal.

If you were unable to make it in August, you have another chance to view the Patterns in Flight butterfly paintings art show. This Friday the butterfly series, Patterns in Flight, will be on display at Wug Laku’s Studio and Garage. The series opening will be September 3, 2010 at 6pm-10pm during the IDADA’s August First Friday and the series will show through September 25. Wug Laku’s Studio and Garage is located at 1125 Brookside Ave #C7 Indianapolis, Indiana.

If you cannot make it to the opening, Wug’s gallery hours are 12-4pm Friday and Saturday or by appointment. To make an appointment, call Wug Laku at 317-270-8258.

From the gallery owner:

This exhibit is a spectacular display of freedom in motion. Spend enough time in the room with these paintings and you’ll feel the air begin to vibrate and move about you. Although the nominal subject is butterflies, the real subject of these paintings is how powerfully color, line and composition can combine into patterns to create a vibrant, dynamic, even explosive viewing experience, thereby introducing us to a new experience of our everyday world.

The painting series is about journeys: the journey of each butterfly, but also my journey. Patterns in Flight provokes thoughts on time, refined beauty, and overcoming struggles. It contains a variety of butterfly species: painted ladies, a blue morpho, malachites, a citris swallowtail, postmans, a variable cracker and a zebra longwing.

RVSP today at the Facebook event: Patterns in Flight at Wug Laku’s

There are times when one looks back in time and remembers glimpses of what came before.  Visually, one’s eyes are isolated to perceiving what is now, however through images, pieces of time can be superimposed.  Time and animation are integral elements in my dynamic still life paintings.  During their lives, butterflies are creatures that themselves undergo great change.  They start as insects bound to the earth and transform into wonders of flight.

In these paintings, the simplified patterns of wings, closely cropped, tend to eclipse the creaturely nature of each butterfly.  Diagonal orientation of some canvases adds to the energy of the image.  This position breaks convention and presents a shape that can be referential to transition.

The details of how wings open: the way that sometimes light falls on the wings creating a translucent glow, reminiscent of stained glass, and how the patterns foreshorten as the wings open, add to the sense of movement, and at times rhythm, in the paintings.

A continuous and ‘unlimited’ conversation is encouraged by the use of short poetic titles.  These names can be understood as word plays on the butterfly’s name, but can also relate to time, refined beauty, and challenges overcome.

Patterns in Flight.  Patterns of movement, color, and light. Sometimes a pattern manifests where no pattern exists; patterns are implied but not actualized.  These paintings are not static butterflies, collected and mounted, but elusive creatures in flight.

It was more than a year ago that I began my butterfly series, Patterns in Flight. It’s now ready to break out of it’s cocoon (so to speak).  RVSP today at the Facebook event: Patterns in Flight at Wug Laku’s

The entire butterfly series, Patterns in Flight, will be on display at Wug Laku’s Studio and Garage. The series opening will be August 6, 2010 at 6pm-10pm during the IDADA’s August First Friday and the series will show through September 25. Wug Laku’s Studio and Garage is located at 1125 Brookside Ave #C7 Indianapolis, Indiana.

If you cannot make it to the opening, Wug’s gallery hours are 12-4pm Friday and Saturday or by appointment. To make an appointment, call Wug Laku at 317-270-8258.

The painting series is about journeys: the journey of each butterfly, but also my journey. I have transformed from being called the “bone lady” to the “butterfly girl” over last last year. Three paintings of this series were selected by the Arts Council of Indianapolis. Working with the Arts Council led to a few small commissioned works for the ARTI awards. My macro paintings have been compared to Georgia O’Keefe –whether that comparison is true or not. I have learned much about myself wondering around butterfly wing veins and cells for hours on end. And now I am excited to finally place these paintings in public view at Wug Laku’s Studio and Garage which is at the Circle City Complex.

Patterns in Flight provokes thoughts on time, refined beauty, and overcoming struggles. It contains a variety of butterfly species: painted ladies, a blue morpho, malachites, a citris swallowtail, postmans, a variable cracker and a zebra longwing.

This May, the Arts Council of Indianapolis is moving offices from the Guaranty Building at 20 N. Meridian Street to 924 N. Pennsylvania St. Their new location, called the Metzger Building, is an art deco building covered in white tile and built in 1928. It once housed a roller skating rink.

As a part of the Art Council of Indianapolis’ Picture Windows Program, a Public Art Indianapolis project, the Arts Council requested from local artists images of current work to display on a large 36′ by 10′ banner. The above collage of three pieces from my latest dynamic still-life series, Patterns in Flight, was selected. This, Patterns in Flight triptych, will be a vinyl banner on the exterior of the building. The Patterns in Flight triptych is scheduled to be installed Tuesday, May 25, 2010 and will remain installed for one year.

The entire butterfly series, Patterns in Flight, will be on display at Wug Laku’s Studio and Garage. The series opening will be August 6, 2010 during the August First Friday and the series will show through August 28. Wug Laku’s Studio and Garage is located at 1125 Brookside Ave #C7 Indianapolis, Indiana.

"Unwound", oil on Fiberboard

I spent an hour today taking in the show, A Working History of Things to Come, works by Eric Hudgins in Wug Laku’s Studio and Garage.  The show is aptly titled, as the paintings build upon themselves and foreshadow his current work.  Overall, Hudgin creates pieces that have interweaving patterns, ideas, and colors.  His work explores the relationship between technology and nature.  The older pieces in the main part of the gallery contain a dichotomy of nature and technology.  They relate, yet remain separate.  In the “red” room, one finds abstract paintings that seem to contain something somewhere between the extremes.  All of the pieces are painted with care.  The surface of the paintings are smooth and therefore do not obstruct the viewer from the content of the painting.

Among the earlier works on display, Cecoprian and Convergence caught my eye and mind.  These works are surreal in nature and representational in execution.  The work is presented in black frames that add to the formal, traditional feeling of this earlier work.  Eric Hudgins sums up his ideas when he states, “I believe there may come a day when technology is viewed as being just as natural as nature itself.”

"Cecoprian", oil, acrylic, ink, graphite on paper

In Cecoprian, the viewer is presented with a moth.  Half of the moth is natural.  The other part is created with intricate designs and patterns, melded with nature.  There is a combination of nature and technology, yet they stand as separate elements.  In Convergence, the dialogue between nature and technology takes on a different dimension as an alligator hatches out of a light bulb and an apple split in half reveals half of a white natural apple and half of a mechanical object.

"Convergence", detail

"Convergence", detail

The larger, newer, abstract works in the red room are displayed as frame-less, wrapped canvases.  These works are narrative, containing forms interacting with light in space and time.  The subject, although abstract, is the result of natural and mechanical influences.  It is a combination of the two separate ideas that Hudgins was previously working with.  A detail from Divine Turbulence shows how one of the planes in the picture, painted like a sky, is transposed next to a mechanical shaped plane.

Symmetry is the element that seems to hold both Running a Finger Along the Edge of Madness and The Rise of Fall together.  The paintings have energy and motion, but are stabilized by vertical symmetry.  In the first of these two paintings, it is symmetrical to the point of having a different light source for each half.  In the latter painting, there is a single light source which opens the space of the painting up to include a singular, symmetrical object.

Running a Finger along the Edge of Madness

The Rise of Fall

The show will be up through May 29.  Wug Laku’s Studio and Garage is open 12-4 on Fridays and Saturdays or by appointment.