installation: appox. 48″x96″; dyed paper, vintage photos, feathers, staples, marble dust, silver leaf, pins; 2023. Courtesy of the artist.
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Incantation
at the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Ana, California, USA
7-28 October 2023
Nancy Kay Turner writes about this exhibition:
Incantation is the use of spells or verbal charms spoken or sung as part of a ritual of magic or a written formula of words designed to produce a particular effect. Magical incantations, spells, psychic readings, the I Ching, dreams, astrology, tarot cards and religious talismans are some of the myriad of ways that people in all cultures (regardless of education, social class or wealth) deal with the uncertainties and vagaries of life, disparities of wealth or attempt to heal body and soul. The relationship between art and magic is well documented in art history, from enigmatic cave paintings to mysterious medieval alchemical texts. Art is a metaphoric and permeable membrane between the spiritual (ethereal, unseen, invisible) and the material (concrete, seen, visible) worlds.
Break a mirror/seven years bad luck/Black Cat/Bad Luck/The Evil Eye/
Malocchio/Kinehora/Amulets/charms/The Eye of Fatima/The Hand of Fatima/
Throwing salt over your shoulder/Don’t walk under a ladder/Don’t cross cutlery/
Garlic and Vampires/Ghosts/Witches/Step on a crack/Break your back/Sage
installation: appox. 48″x96″; dyed paper, vintage photos, feathers, staples, marble dust, silver leaf, pins; 2023. Courtesy of the artist.
Alchemy, magic spells and religious rituals are our way of dealing with jealousy, envy, uncertainty, loss and our knowledge of pre-ordained death. Paul Klee famously said that the purpose of art is to render the invisible visible. The artists here are the vessels that channel this energy from one place to the other while using traditional or non-traditional materials and often blending craft techniques with industrial materials. Using photography, installation, mixed media, picoté, paint, graphite and electronic waste, their works are a bridge between the known and the unknown, the seen and the unseen, the remembered and the forgotten. Moving effortlessly between past, present and the future, the very creation of their art is as mysterious and intriguing as an incantation.
Artists in the exhibition are Marthe Aponte, Chenhung Chen, Annie Clavel, Catherine Ruane, Jane Szabo, Nancy Kay Turner, and Lisa Diane Wedgeworth. “Incantation” was curated by Chenhung Chen.
(text adapted from material provided by the gallery and Nancy Kay Turner)
INFORMATION
Orange County Center for Contemporary Art
117 North Sycamore Street
Santa Ana, California 92701 USA
(714) 667-1517
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