Reinvention

REINVENTION documents the story of 5 artists who reinvented themselves and their work in order to overcome limitations forced on them because of traumatic injury, aging or disease. The acceptance, adaptation and evolution that each underwent as part of the crisis process resulted in the production of powerful, original bodies of work in divergent directions.

Bissett, Klausman and Bercaw turned away from making sculpture to working on paper. Bissett suffered from nerve damage which made it impossible to continue her work in bronze and stone. She literally was told to not “Use her hands”. Her determination to continue working and communicating as an artist led her to start drawing with her feet and sometime later ,when she regained use of her hands, resulted in a body of work that could be categorized as paper reliefs constructed by layering, laminating, sanding, tearing, cutting and reassembling. Klausman worked as a welder for over 20 years and had just reignited his artistic practices fabricating steel sculpture when an accident at work nearly cost him three fingers on his right hand. After a brief period of post-surgery depression he decided to figure out how to draw with his left hand. The line that he developed during this time became the basis for a whole new body of work which he has explored in many different directions for the past 5 years. Bercaw, a painter, had gained much notoriety for her large geometric wall reliefs which combined aspects of sculpture and painting. As she aged the demanding reliefs caused her constant pain in her hands. She contemplated giving up life as an artist but eventually found a creative solution in the use of printed papers collaged into a “visual manifestation of our knowingly positive attitude toward life and beauty in a variety of forms”.

Reach and Rogers both turned to the computer as their tool of choice and digital prints as a chosen mode of expression. Rogers was a nationally known print maker who developed allergies to her materials and eventually wound up making digital prints. Her search to recreate the tonal qualities of the aquatints she loved led her first to photography, electrostatic prints and finally to working with Photoshop on a PC, well into her last years of life. Andrew Reach, disabled because of a spinal disease, had to give up his career as an architect. For Reach making art is a daily therapeutic regimen that keeps him balanced both physically and spiritually. When describing his sizable canvas prints he writes “Using color and geometric fragments akin to bits, I recombine them, in a visual dance of color, composition and optic play to imbue in them a kinetic sense of movement; a stand in for my ability to move freely through the world without pain”.

Opening reception Thursday, March 10, 2016 from 5:30 to 8:00 pm.

Special studio visits planned in April 2016.