Reese Gallery: Friday 29, April 2016

EDGE OF THE MASK: Dreams, Ghosts and Social Constructs

with artists RUTH REESE and SAM VERNON

opening reception Friday, April 29th from 6-9pm

April 29th to May 28th, 2016

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ENCOUNTER at the EDGE OF THE MASK

Thinning boundaries between psychology, politics and intuition, two artists respond to identities coalescing around dreams, ghosts and historical memories.  In her clay chimera, sculptor Ruth Reese unites human with animal, and flora to fauna. Her fantastical humanoid forms become extended, and sometimes overcome as they engage a spiritual agency beyond the human.   Surreal and creaturely,  these sculptures live on the margin of dreams.  Reese invites a diversity of characters into these fairytale tropes.  At the same time, printmaker Sam Vernon creates a Gothic visual art in which black narratives expand the genre.  Vernon xeroxes, draws and collages leaving her work with soft disappearing marks, a technique aptly termed "ghosting".  The drawing then becomes a shadowy and evolving memory of its original self.   Her silhouette in absence becomes a vehicle or mask - in which she is able to create a meta-history of post-colonial investigations. This exhibition brings together many of the varied and mysterious faces of our collective unconscious as it re-interprets the timeless art-form of the mask for contemporary audiences. 

   

REESEgallery

3410 Wisconsin Avenue 

Saint Louis | Missouri | 63118

www.thereesegallery.com

H | 1-4pm | Wed & Sat

or call for apt | 314.954.7638

ruthannreese@gmail.com