Give This Visiting Artist Some Space!!!
By Jim Durham
If
you don’t give artist Deana Rennick her space, she’ll create
it – out of thin air, or from the volume of nothingness
inside a structure she has crafted or installed.
Transylvania’s Kenan Visiting Artist, Rennick asks that the public come, give her feedback and experience her vision of place and space in a rare summer, site-specific show at Georgetown College’s Anne Wright Wilson Gallery, 5-7 p.m., Thursday (May 25). The huge, hollow forms she has been creating and installing should make for a lively gallery talk from 5:15-5:45 p.m., according to gallery director Elissa Morley. She added,
“Rennick’s work will pretty much fill the dimensions” of the Wilson’s 2,145-square foot, 16-foot floor-to-ceiling space.
Rennick, who was recently named one of Sculpture Magazine’s 2005 Contemporary Sculpture Award winners, said that five years of living in Alaska with her son – including in such abodes as a fifth-wheel trailer, a tent, a cabin, a shed, a house, and a cab-over camper – has greatly influenced her art. “By living in these different shelters and being affected constantly by my surroundings, I have developed a deep interest in my intuitive understanding of a sense of place, both in architecture and in landscape, and of the space — or volume — that a place occupies,” she writes. “Thinking about the volume of a place has led me to create hollow forms that explore that sense of place and that provoke questions about the form’s relationship to its particular surroundings.”
“I
generally use a lot of material that is practical – such as
landscaping textiles – or disposable (construction tar-paper
or insulation),” said the recent Ohio State University
graduate. “Usually I sew them together.” Her spring exhibit
that brought great reviews at Transy’s Morlan Gallery was an
example.
“Recent Work by Deana Rennick” with its soaring, air-filled columns that will have patrons looking upward is quite different. “For one, this is the first time I have used tape,” she said. “And, I really like using something like newsprint that isn’t usually thought of as being beautiful.”
“I like the viewer to come in and explore the space – as there is usually a sense of movement.”
During the second hour of the opening reception, from 6-7 p.m., the Donald and Dorothy Jacobs Gallery – Georgetown College’s permanent collection of contemporary works – will be open for a special showing in the Ensor Learning Resource Center across the street.
The Rennick exhibit is up through Aug. 24. Regular hours for the Wilson gallery, corner of Mulberry and College streets, are M-W-F noon-4:30 p.m., Sundays 1:30-4 p.m. Parking is also allowed in the Georgetown Baptist Church lot catty-cornered from the art building.