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"Metaphysical Materiality" at Tinney Contemporary

Presented by Tinney Contemporary at Tinney Contemporary

June 26-July 31, 2010

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In the face of alarming change in the natural world we call home, Metaphysical Materiality investigates Pam Longobardi, Patricia Bellan-Gillen, Margery Amdur, Carol Prusa and Peggy Cypher's visions of alternate possibilities in constructed worlds that echo the complex and multi-layered nature of our existence. As artists, these women display the unique ability to visualize alternative and more positive outcomes for our relationship with nature, often mirroring urgent environmental and social problems, while visualizing a new mindset where Nature is alive and well, infinitely powerful and mysterious.

Pam Longobardi's new works reveal large, connected energy systems punctuated by the minutia of a microscopic lens. Continuing her exploration in the problematic psychological relationship between humans and the natural world, Longobardi simultaneously suggests the interconnectedness of all beings and nature.

In beautifully rendered works on paper and canvas, Patricia Bellan-Gillen depicts narrative collisions between animal behavior and human rituals. Utilizing motifs such as the dunce cap, a floating inner tube, and a jack-o-lantern face as symbols of human foibles, and the singular creature or massing of vast numbers of fish, birds or flowers to speak of imminent natural disaster, Bellan-Gillen's works warn us of the disconnectedness of humans and nature.

Margery Amdur's mixed media works and installations often incorporate materials such as paint chips, pompoms and paint-by-number patterns intermingled with hand-cut frosted mylar suspended within layers of poured liquid resin that speak of the impossible separation of our cultured view and the natural world. Amdur 's elaborately layered works utilize ornament and pattern to reveal the constructed nature of the garden.

Carol Prusa inscribes delicate and mysterious systems in silverpoint on both flat surfaces and glowing domed forms. The intricately detailed symmetrical repetitions of organic shapes suggest the hidden wondrous logic of nature. Fiber optic threads punctuate the domed forms, creating a celestial macro-sphere of the microscopic in fractal resonance.

Peggy Cypher's paintings survey vast spaces from an oblique aerial perspective. The darkening forms that edge the paintings create a sensation of swooping in and flying low over landscapes at the twilight hour. Hovering between abstraction and familiarity, these works utilize the stacked space of Asian perspective to visualize a realm of mind.