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News Clippings and Announcements |
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From the Gallery XII website: Gallery
XII will be open during Wichita's monthly Final Friday Gallery
Walk on September
30th from
6:30-10 pm.
A reception
will be held for our October featured artist Martha Wherry on that
date. Her exhibition will include assemblages & mixed media
3-D collages; titled "The Books." Consignment artists
for October will be sculptor Chris Frank and ceramist/teacher Brent
Knott, who
will be exhibiting his work & the work of his students at Kapaun
Mt. Carmel.
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From Wichita Arts GALLERY XII Contact: WEB SITE: www.WichitaGallery12.com Martha Wherry: "The Books," An exhibit of assemblages and mixed media 3D collages which explore
contemporary issues through the use of found and altered objects,
painting and general mayhem with guest artists Chris Frank and
Brent Knott. |
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Upon first viewing Wherry's recent work, I was reminded of Barbara Kruger's untitled essay on the power of broadcast media from January of 1986. Kruger ruminated on why the general public seeks realism as a form of relief and how contemporary media feeds upon this impulse by often presenting real events repeatedly in such an overblown and extended manner that the presentation of the original event then becomes an event in and of itself. Coverage of Michael Jackson's most recent legal difficulties and the search for a young woman missing in Aruba are classic examples of this tendency. We are to worry and then presumably we will continue to want to watch as further episodes unfold. Kruger asserts that this broadcast media reaction to reality becomes a high drama form of reality exclusive entirely to itself. Kruger believes that people accept this type of often-repeated faux-reality because it gives them "an assurance that they can then understand where they stand, which side they are on and who's winning." It allows them to think that we are "still in the neighborhood of ethics, principles, and truth." Wherry has taken the reality of certain actual daily events that she has experienced and converted her personal reactions to those events into small and energetic hanging wall objects that share the basic form of books. These are not books with a direct and easily understood literary message - not books made up of pages filled with printed words - rather these are books with a deceptively "naive" veneer. They are made up of hollow shells resembling books from which explode avalanches of assemblage objects and collage items that bond loosely together to present an emotional reaction to the original events that motivated their creation. The Books are crafted in a manner that can be described as humorous and yet bitterly caustic, satirical and at the same time slightly frightening. When asked the major inspirations for this series, Wherry answered rapidly and without hesitation; "Anger and frustration." All of The Books share a base of deeply personal realism made up of extremely raw, impulsively honest and unfiltered emotions with the reactive goal of expressing the ideals of ethics, principles and truth: of projecting a self-perceived battle between good and bad. Basically, Wherry has mimicked Kruger's assertion about the broadcast media but her dramatic presentation of her own reality is made on a much smaller, more intimate and much more accessible scale than that of the major communications media. Wherry laughingly enjoys entertaining the quasi-romantic notion that she is something of a cultural outlaw. In fact, she is much more a cultural preacher, pouring forth crypto-post-modern fire and brimstone in direct reaction to her contemporary mid-western life. Previously conceived regional work most directly related to this series is the well-known and well-established assemblage of Marc Bosworth, an artist Wherry says she admires. It is interesting that other artists Wherry admires, including Hopper, Klimt, Degas, Schiele and Cassatt, do not appear as direct influences in these works. On the other hand, Hopper's realistic eye for measuring the distances that separate people and Klimt and Schiele's rebellious aim to shock and provoke social and sexual hierarchies are perhaps more hidden influences. Wherry began visualizing The Books early this year, The spark of righteous indignation that finally prodded her into action a few weeks ago was overhearing comments by artists who were privately making catty remarks belittling other artists. From that time on she has been fervently producing her books. Akin to Kruger's assertion, Wherry began magnifying small everyday events into art-media events with larger social and moral ramifications. Some of her titles, The Book of Love, The Book of Bad Advice, The Book of Gossip, The Therapy Book and Better Luck Next Time, hint at some of the realities she has chosen to explore and to expose. Summing up her intentions, Wherry has said "Life is confusing and The Books are my attempts to sort it out. We have all been there". David Lee Quick |
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From Wichita Business Journal Coming Up in Business |
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PrincessOfLove@MarthaWherry.com
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