Artist Jill Downen Turns Tarble Arts Center Into Sculpture |
 |
 |
| Thursday, 12 January 2006 17:00 |
 CHARLESTON, IL.- Visiting artist Jill Downen has turned the Tarble Arts Center’s eGallery at Eastern Illinois University into a piece of sculpture. The walls appear to sag and bulge under their own weight, and in some places are propped up with 2x4s. Titled “Uneasy Opposition,” the site-specific installation at the Tarble is one in a series of Downen’s exhibitions that “explore the symbiotic relationship between the body and architecture.” States Downen: “My main preoccupation is with space and the philosophical implications that arise from the notion that a building is a body.” “It is not just addressing the body and architecture, but also the absurd, the viewer, forces of nature, and culture.
The in-between space is critical to my work. I am interested in breaking down boundaries where complexity,contradiction, and mystery unfold,” said the artist. Says St. Louis curator Fitzgerald, “These sculptural elements depict bulges, folds, and wrinkles that protrude,swell, and sag just as the human body does over time. Despite the slow gravitational pull on the flesh,the physical tension is visually seductive and arousing to varying degrees as the flesh retains its sensuality and erogenous zones are revealed within its folds.“ Fitzgerald interprets the 2x4 wood props “rammed into the flesh” of the walls as symbolizing our “attempt to stop the body from a slow deterioration and/or its rapid and literal collapse eflects a tired and uneasy exertion. This exhausted act brings forth the futility in the ways in which we seek to hold on to our youth, beauty, and health that threatens to disappear on a daily basis.” Downen is on the faculty at Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis where she earned a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture in 2001 as a Danforth Scholar. She received a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute. Downen's work can be viewed at www.jilldownen.com. Recently Downen was awarded a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. In 2003 she received a Great Rivers Biennial Grant, sponsored by The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and the Gateway Foundation, and in 2004 she exhibited her work “The Posture of Place” as part of the Great Rivers Biennial exhibition. Downen’s residency and exhibition are co-sponsored with the Eastern Illinois University Art Department. A division of the College of Arts & Humanities, the Tarble is accredited by the American Association of Museums, and is funded in part by Tarble Arts Center membership contributions and by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency. The installation remains on view January 19 – February 26. Admission is free and the public is invited.Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
Related Articles :
