PAPER: burned, cut, folded and stitched with Tracey Adams

PAPER: burned, cut, folded and stitched is a beautiful exhibition currently on at Bryant Street Gallery in Palo Alto, until April 30.  Curated by artist Tracey Adams the exhibition features her own work alongside that by Jenene NagyKaren Margolis, Michael Buscemi and Cecil Touchon, artists with very different approaches to working with paper but who all share a great sensitivity to their material and technique – the results are sublime!

Bryant Street Gallery

Reception

Holly Van Hart with Tracey Adams.

Tracey Adams – Folded August 24 2014 – pigmented beeswax and silk thread on kitakata.

Tracey Adams – Folded July 29, 2014 – pigmented beeswax and silk thread on kitakata.

Tracey Adams showing an unframed Folded work to artists Howard Hersh and Lorraine Lawson.

It was such a pleasure meeting Tracey Adams – I loved hearing how she dips her large sheets of Japanese paper into hot vats of pigmented wax, creating vertical accordion and box pleat folds the pricking the holes to hand stitch with silk thread in delicate curvilinear trails that fasten the folds in place.

Jenene Nagy – Older Than the Host 5 – graphite on folded paper.

Jenene Nagy – Older Than the Host 3 – graphite on folded paper.

Jenene Nagy’s folded paper graphite are subtle and gorgeous. Their burnished silver surface reminds me of tintypes and steely oceans and the folds feel like a pieced quilt.

Karen Margolis – Mazarine – watercolor, gouache, thread, map fragements on abaca.

Karen Margolis – Blush – watercolor, gouache, thread, map fragments on abaca.

Karen Margolis – watercolor, gouache, thread, map fragments on abaca (detail).

Karen Margolis’s pieces have a delicate organic feeling evoking thoughts of cell structure and insect activity. I’m coveting Blush – the way the light pink transitions from light blue to overlapping the black and grey it felt like a bloom of mold, so delicate!

Cecil Touchon – Fusion Series # 3553 – Collage on Paper

Fergus in front of Cecil Touchon’s sophisticated collages made from reassembled paintings some with fragments of text.

Michael Buscemi with his assistant, Giorgi Azarashvili.

Michael Buscemi describing what went into Victory – collage, ink wash on paper.

Spring (detail).

Michael Buscemi’s cut paper constructions are weightless and airy and feathery, Spring is a departure from his earlier all white pieces introducing hint of color which has a gentle cast in the work.

The artist talking about Spring – cut paper construction.

Artists Lorraine Lawson, Patty Montgomery, Holly Van Hart and Scott Holtslander.

Holly Van Hart, Joyce Polish, Howard Hersh, Lorraine Lawson, Tracey Adams and  Michael Buscemi.