Fri 2/5 @ 7-8PM
Kathy Skerritt and Denise Buckley, the two artists featured in the next show at Artists Archives of the Western Reserve, work in very different media and styles. Skerritt is an abstract painter while Buckley is a figurative sculptor and welder. But their show, titled Beyond Surface, is intended to showcase their commonalities. Both are attempting to look beyond the surface of their materials to find the “inner essence” of their subjects.
Skerritt explains what’s under the surface of her textured, jewel-colored works: “I became deeply influenced by hours spent gazing at the Earth from airplanes. Viewing from above the river systems and lakes, mountain ranges, and desert stimulated my sense of the Earth as a living system. Later studies of human anatomy revealed exciting visual correspondences between rivers and the circulatory system, forests and the bronchial tree of the lungs, topographies and the organ, skeletal, and fluid systems of the body.”
Buckley’s work features human forms in bronze, clay, and steel that have been stripped of various elements, some becoming nothing more than a framework.
“My history is reflected in my work, my relationships with people, the environment, and thoughts which all come together in the safety of the studio,” she says. “I can push, pull, pound, form and distort materials into the human form, into my voice, into me. I make figurative objects sometimes they are beautiful, sometimes not. The work is personal yet speaks to universal themes of beauty, power, hardship, and compassion as defined by different cultures, both past and present.”
The show welcomes the two artists into AAWR collection of regional art. It opens with a virtual reception on Zoom Friday February 5 @ 7-8pm. The gallery is open Wednesday-Friday @ 10am-4pm and Saturday @ noon-4pm show will be up through March 27.
Cleveland, OH 44106