Sometimes, we have to remind ourselves not to touch the art. Recently, on a warm afternoon, I attended the opening reception of the Textures exhibition, currently showing at the Art Coop gallery. The work at this exhibition includes mixed media by the artists Carol Alison, Lisa Kesler, and Cindy Sampson. One may guess by the title of the exhibition that the art featured is all exceptionally three-dimensional. Each piece is characterized by the ridges, frills, cloths, and paper pieces utilized to construct it. All of these—appropriately—textures made it difficult to refrain from reaching out and touching the pieces. Art is often evocative, yet it’s so easy to confine it to simple categorization, often by the type of media used to create it. Not only by providing visitors with these mixed media pieces, but by taking the art beyond the two-dimensional, these artists provide us with a unique experience.
As I chatted a bit with the artists, Alison told me about how the three of them had curated their work together. Rather than showing each artist’s work in a separate section, the pieces were all mixed together alongside each other on the walls. As Alison pointed out, by doing so, the different pieces can be “in conversation with each other,” bringing out new details in their juxtaposition. Alison also reminded me that ten percent of each sale from the exhibition will be donated to Girls Rock CU. Alison’s work was interesting, and I was especially drawn to a large piece hanging by itself on a wall, entitled “Where TF Is Steve Zissou When We Need Him,” mixed media on raw canvas. Like much of the work at this exhibition, this piece seems to go beyond its borders, with its undefined boundaries of color and medium. The ragged edges of the raw canvas produce a specific dimensionality, adding creases and perceived imperfections that would otherwise be ironed and cut out.
One artist from this exhibition, Lisa Kesler, was already familiar to me. I’d seen her work during the Boneyard Arts Festival when it was exhibited at the Tolono Outpost. Kesler’s work stood out to me then, with its haptic qualities and bright colors. Those same pieces are now exhibited at Textures. Kesler uses paper clay for these specific pieces, which allows her to stamp the clay and interweave it into colorful, ridged, and self-contained squares. Kesler mentioned that the clay provides “a surface I can work on however I want.” Kesler spoke extensively about her process, how she’d only recently started experimenting with paper clay, and how she used parts of other materials to play with the clay and to create different textures on these surfaces. In my conversation with Kesler, she mentioned that she often teaches art classes, as does Cindy Sampson. I hope she decides to teach some classes again soon.
Cindy Sampson had some especially intriguing pieces, and often utilized collaging techniques in her intricate work. I was struck by how deceptively simple the art of collaging is, and how a skilled artist like Sampson can utilize these pieces and layers. Some of her work includes text, words, pages cut up and inserted onto a piece’s façade. As she herself said to me, there’s a “serendipity of everyone seeing something different in the words,” and ascribing their own personal meaning into her art. I was especially drawn to Sampson’s triptych entitled “The Sister Trilogy.” It consists of three pieces of feminine figures on long, vertical canvases, their skirts taking up much of the surface. They seem to each represent an abstract concept, given their titles: “Sister Whimsy,” “Sister Mystic,” and “Sister Ethereal.” The triptych evokes not only femininity and the imagination, but also nature, light, and dark.
Textures
Art Coop Gallery
Lincoln Square Mall
Urbana
June 8 to 25
Hours posted here