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Anne Kingsbury: Permission to Play
Anne Kingsbury combines text and image in meticulous, brilliantly colored beadwork The exhibition will feature what Kingsbury describes as a “pataphysical alphabet:” 26 playful beaded letters that combine human and animal forms, each just 4 x 4 inches. Pataphysics is a French absurdist concept that parodies modern science and is often expressed in nonsensical language. In addition to the beaded letters, Kingsbury will show a series of prints from her illustrated journal and a page-sized beaded drawing. Along with her choice of media, her journals recording mundane tasks make a profound statement about the value of domestic life and labor. The tiny seed beads, says Kingsbury, “offer resistance. They slow me down and force me to spend time making things by hand.”
Listen to a brief interview with Anne by James Watrous Gallery director Jody Clowes below.
Helen Lee: Em Space Engram
Helen Lee grew up speaking both English and Chinese, and the ways that language has shaped her identity and family relationships is central to her interest in typography. Trained as a glassblower and graphic designer, she is interested in the physical relationship between words, letter forms, and the body. Lee’s use of glass is also grounded in its prominent role in communication technology, from the glass screens of computers and mobile phones to the fiber-optic cables that have revolutionized data transmission.
Her current work explores the material legacy of type-setting and typewriters, and the still recent transition to computer displays and vector-based graphics. The QWERTY keyboard, for example, survives in translation, while linotype’s ETAOIN SHRDLU keyboard has become commercially obsolete. Although Lee has often worked with bold color, this spare and elegant series is made primarily in clear and black glass enhanced with artificial light.
