Welcome to our first SAQA-wide land art exhibit. The Exhibitions Committee had discussed this idea for years, but including outdoor installations in our traveling brick-and-mortar exhibits seemed daunting. Now the new Virtual Gallery Program has made this project possible. Read below to see what the curators have to say about creating this collection.
Be sure to click See Details under each image to find out more about each piece, including additional images, videos, and statements. Click on any square image to launch the slideshow.
Outdoor artwork installations provide temporal beauty within the community. Ingenuity, art supplies, and imagination, are all that one needs to create an outdoor installation that invites exploration or participation. In the freedom of an outdoor context, even traditional art has the power to interact with the landscape in a new and meaningful way.
Judith Martin, Textile Artist
The fabric constructions Judith makes combine fine art's conceptualism with traditional woman's craft. Photographs, drawings, paintings, and objects are mixed with fabrics, threads, and text in order to communicate poetically. Meditative handwork fills most of the pieces.
Traditional quilt patterns and multi-cultural symbols concerning birth, death, and sexuality are the foundation for her artwork. When one considers the connection that these rites of passage have to the bed, then the quilt is an obvious and powerful medium.
Curator Statement:
It was both an honour and a serious responsibility to be one of the curators for SAQA’s first Land Art exhibition. When humans interact with artwork set in nature, we discover new connections and meanings in what was so familiar. Because most of us can only experience these ephemeral installations through books and online experiences, it is important for artists working in this evolving art form to remember that excellent photography is crucial. The climate crises, the pandemic, and humanity’s mark are subjects explored by some of the artists in this exhibition, but the most common theme remains the imagination itself, and how it is ignited by the experience of being outside. Sincere thanks to all who entered and made this exhibition so successful.
Daren Pitts Redman, Contemporary Textile Artist
What began as a desire to share warmth with family through creating quilts, reflective of the individual, has evolved into an experiential contemporary textile art form for Daren.
Daren’s 2D and 3D textile art is about sharing life’s journey. It’s a story about discoveries, community, and travel. The motifs and contemporary abstract compositions she creates are inspired by what she sees in photographs, or the world around her.
A storyteller at heart, Daren discovered that her love of travel, and the desire to share these experiences with those around her and back home, became the seeds for her textile expressions. After all, fabric has a history of embodying stories, so what better way to share these mindful moments?
Curator Statement:
The Land Art which was submitted represented insects, rocks, birds, flags, umbrella, leaves and many more sources of inspiration. These were all installed in an outdoor setting that made the jurors think and made for interesting discussions. We agreed that the art needed to interact with the environment and was obvious that the artists took time to make and install.
Susan Lenz, Installation and Contemporary Embroidery Artist
Generally using needle and thread for self-expression, Susan works to articulate the accumulated memory inherent in discarded things. She seeks a partnership with her materials, their purposes, values, and familiar associations. Memory, universal mortality, and personal legacy are central themes.
Vintage and recycled materials are combined with meticulous handwork and self-guided, free-motion machine embroidery. Susan is drawn to textiles for their tactile qualities and often makes work that is meant to touch and be touched.
Curator Statement:
Knowing the stellar quality of SAQA exhibitions, I was expecting the high caliber of work that I encountered as a juror and knew my decisions would be difficult. The overall visual impact of the selection was strong. Many submissions stimulated my own creative impulses. Yet, every art quilter should bear in mind the wise words of photographer Ralph Gibson who said, “The only thing for an artist to remember is that he or she is the only one fully entitled to judge the work. The artist who makes the work is the one who will spend the most time looking and ultimately understanding the content of the work.”
Brooke Atherton - Covid Calendar
Ana Paula Brasil - flit flow fly freedom
Judith Content - Wrack Line (After the Storm)
Damss Daniela Arnoldi Marco Sarzi-Sartori - THE SIGN
Susan Else - Pogonip Quarry
Sarah Lykins Entsminger - Cool Weather Leaves
Liz Hewitt - Fragments of Time
Kristina Hodgetts - Generations of Family Doilies Outdoor Umbrella
JoAnne Hoffman - I Touch the Earth
Michelle Jackson - Red Ant
Natalya Khorover - Speaking of Birds
Teresita Leal - Great Expectations
Gail Naughton - Weeping Oak
Barbara Sferra - Waiting for Rain
Bonnie J. Smith - Water Bubbles #1
Jennifer Solon - Nest: Redefined
Connie Tiegel - Prayer Flags for Covid
Vivien Zepf - Redwood Bark Study: Burn Bandaids
