On Thursday, August 20 from 5 – 7pm the public is invited to attend an opening reception for a new featured exhibit at Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts at 183 Main Street, Brattleboro. Father and Son, Malcolm and Shaun Wright (ceramic and bronze sculpture and photography respectively) are teaming up for an exhibit showcasing their work along with the oil canvases of Petria Mitchell.
The name Malcolm Wright will be familiar to many in Southern Vermont and beyond as a ceramic artist and sculptor. His work is widely collected privately and publicly. Collections include the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Denver Art Museum, The Currier Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and the Bennington Museum.
The work featured in this exhibit is part of a sculpture project Wright began in 2007. Wright is well-known for his Japanese influenced ceramics with a minimalist aesthetic, and the bronze work in this exhibit grows from the same place. In talking about using bronze as a medium he states, “So why am I interested in bronze? . . . Bronze carries a feeling of permanence. When I arrive at a form that, to my eye, appears mature, I have a desire to see it realized in bronze. Bronze leads to the possibility of small editions, and varied surface treatments. Color is variable and controllable. Finally and most important, the visual hardness of the material works for my forms.”
Malcolm’s son, Shaun Wright, creates striking black and white photography in mini-landscapes, drawing from the world around him, “One of the early lures of photography was my inability to face an empty canvas. I use a method of working reductively from all that my eyes see, rather than constructing from inside my mind.” Images in this exhibit are gathered from a range of Shaun’s life experience, reflecting his life during a move from Saint Louis, Missouri to Sao Paulo, Brazil. According to Shaun, “Photographs present themselves to me and are most commonly created by removing the busyness of life in order to create a world inside the image . . . The desires of modern life become unimportant, all that remains is a silver print with the basic elements of design: texture, shape, line, and composition. . . These prints all come from my journey, my camera, and my eyes.”
Rounding out the exhibit are the atmospheric abstracted landscapes of Petria Mitchell. An artist established in Southern Vermont for over 30 years and co-owner of Mitchell • Giddings FIne Arts, Petria’s work is familiar to many. The softly blended colorist scenes come from her own imagination, “Which allows me to play with limitless visual possibilities with a thorough appreciation for abstraction. My paintings are compositions of internal places not visited on foot. When working with atmosphere and diffused light, I’m able to emphasize my interest in the plasticity of paint, rather than the physics of light.”
These exhibits will be on display through September 27, 2015. On Sunday, August 23 an artist talk featuring Malcolm and Shaun Wright and facilitated by Craig Stockwell begins at 5pm and is open to the public.
Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts features innovative works by midcareer and established artists in a variety of media. MGFA is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11-5 pm.
