Utilizing different media, Catherine Richardson, painter, and Will Tait, sculptor investigate the notion of sense of place and connection to home. Resonances both artists share include a search for the deep seated meaning of “home” and “land” which they share with us through their process and their work. Nature and tangible space plays an important role in both artists’ work as well.
Catherine Richardson:
Catherine Richardson was born in, and grew up in, Yorkshire, North England, and later, London. She made deep connections to the natural world at an early age, as her play areas were the Dales and Moors. Walking is a major pastime in the UK due to public access to land. She moved all over the UK and in order to understand each place and Catherine would walk everywhere, often getting lost, only to discover... new home.
Catherine has a BFA in Metal sculpture and silversmithing from West Surrey College of Art & Design (UK) and an MFA from JFKU (Berkeley) and currently lives in Petaluma CA. While studying for her MFA at JFKU in Berkeley, she allowed the connection to the natural world of her childhood to become what her artwork was really about.
http://cjrich.com/
Catherine Richardson~In Her Own Words:
The artwork in this show is my investigation into location and its connections to
"home" when the home of origin is in another country. I wonder what makes my current place a home. The idea of home becomes obscure; dimmed by relocation, commuting and
overly busy lives. What experiences and perceptions, of a locale, can be created to help
evolve a sense of belonging when one is missing? In our ever-changing environments, the natural world is a constant and provides a reference of the real. Pieces in this show illustrate my walking the locale while I deepen my levels of perception and awareness, unveiling the obscurities of place until I understand my connection to it.
Exploring the idea of “belonging” as one of the senses, I am curious to know how it evolves; whether we live most of our lives in one region or we take a nomadic trail, I am interested in what is it that gives us a sense of belonging. What is a constant in an ever-changing landscape? There are many layers of a locale to explore, just as there are levels of responses when we are intent on realizing them through relationship to place. I investigate these questions in each location that I inhabit. I attempt to cultivate a sensual exchange with the natural world utilizing the approach of phenomenology, a philosophical discipline that describes ways the natural world makes itself evident to our awareness. As I research this fluid region of direct experience and the structures and sub-structures of place, my artwork defines a personal connection separate from the purely objectified, mapped world, and I come to understand more fully, a sense of “belonging”.
Catherine Richardson “Maps”, Drawings and Paintings:
The “maps” and paintings are larger 2D format. They follow the system of a map without being navigational tools, but rather a collection of stories of my experiences in relation to place.
Will Tait:Tait’s first conscious memory of making artwork goes back to when he was six years old. Fascinated by how the Old Masters created the illusion on a two-dimensional surface of objects in space, as he grew up he drew what was around him. For the most part Will drew flowers, leaves, trees, weeds in fields, and other natural subjects. Later Tait studied for several years at The Art Students League of New York in Manhattan.
In addition to sculpture Will paints, draws, creates one of a kind furniture, and also uses computers as a creative medium. Will Tait’s work is in corporate collections, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, several galleries and he has exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art artist’s gallery. http://willtait.com/
Will Tait~ Sculpture~ In His Own Words:
Inspiration for my wood sculpture has always been gleaned from nature. Currently (2007) I look to the physical manifestation of the interplay between natural forces. These forces can be ephemeral like the shapes formed by foam on the edge of waves interacting as they meet the sandy beach and, at other times, a more solid manifestation, such as bark shaped by the growth of a tree, or roots shaped as they grow by the resistance of nearby soil and rocks. For me these manifestations exist in what I think of as the space between the seen and the unseen. This constantly fluctuating space, filled with dynamic energy in constant flux, influences my process and my art profoundly. “My work is more about beauty as I find it in the natural world than intellectual concepts. I suppose at heart I am a romantic.,” - Will Tait
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