Images Available Upon Request Contact: Martha Gellens 718.549.3200 x232 or [email protected] TENDING TOWARD THE UNTAMED: ARTISTS RESPOND TO THE WILD GARDEN Wave Hill Glyndor Gallery, April 3–August 19, 2012 Bronx, NY, February 14, 2012– Wave Hill’s signature Wild Garden serves as an inspiration for eight artists who are creating new work in a variety of media, including painting, animation, photography, sculpture and new media installation in Glyndor Gallery. The artists are particularly interested in the garden’s display of species from around the world, as well as in the tension between the Wild Garden’s seemingly untamed appearance and the intensive activity required to create and maintain it. Works by Isabella Kirkland and Anat Shiftan portray the remarkable variety of plants represented in the Wild Garden, while Julie Evans and Rebecca Morales embrace its diverse plant palette and mix of spontaneity and control. Gary Carsley, Chris Doyle and Erik Sanner capture the stimulating experience of viewing the garden’s varied and immersive terrain; Janelle Lynch shares their interest in the cycles of change represented by the growth, continual maintenance and decomposition of the Wild Garden’s plants over the seasons. Based on concepts championed by Irish gardener William Robinson in the 1870’s, the Wild Garden achieves a relaxed, serendipitous quality that contrasts with more formal parts of Wave Hill’s landscape. Wave Hill horticultural staff have undertaken a transformation of the Wild Garden in the last year, rejuvenating flower beds, opening new vistas to the Hudson River and Palisades and improving pathways, all with an eye to restoring the balance between the amount of light experienced in this part of the garden and the feeling of enclosure that is characteristic of this garden ―room.‖ The Wild Garden provides a framework for the new art created for this spring’s exhibition. Gary Carsley is creating an installation of IKEA cabinets that are lined with composite images made up of pictures gathered from successive visits to Wave Hill’s Wild Garden over the past year. His manipulation and reconfiguration of garden views, sections of which are substituted with fragments of faux wood grain, stand in for the artifice of the garden. Based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Sydney, Australia, Carsley has exhibited at Breenspace, Sydney; Art Gallery of New South Wales; and the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. He is represented by Margaret Thatcher Projects in New York, NY. Julie Evans, Wild Garden #1, 2011 Chris Doyle’s new animation piece is drawn from images of the Wild Garden that will be presented on a pair of screens arranged like an open book. The artist uses animation to explore the concept of wildness and our cultural desire to preserve, untouched, bits of our environment. This work is part of a larger project that draws on the savage in contrast to the civilized. Doyle is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. His work has been shown at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; The Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA; MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY; The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY. Julie Evans’s project—painting/collage on vellum—emphasizes the fine balance between natural abandon and careful cultivation as they relate to both the garden and her working process. To create her vibrant, evocative MORE/ -2- works on paper, the artist pours water-based media on mylar; gravity and chemistry cause the media to spread and flow. She then cuts out and reassembles abstract shapes into clusters of growth. Evans is based in the Hudson Valley. Her recent exhibition Cowdust: Julie Evans and Ajay Sharma, Collaborative Paintings was on view at Julie Saul Gallery, New York, NY, in 2010. She had another recent solo exhibition at Rambagh Palace in Jaipur, India, which was curated by Peter Nagy. In her photographic series for this exhibition, Janelle Lynch is interested in the natural cycle of decay. She will display large-format photographs of composted debris from the Wild Garden. Lynch is based in New York and her photography of the urban and rural landscape has been widely exhibited and collected. Her book Los Jardines de México was published in 2011 and her photographs from that series were on view at Boston University’s Photographic Resource Center. Los Angeles-based artist Rebecca Morales is creating a large gouache and watercolor painting on calf vellum drawn from her interest in moss and lichen. This imagery is combined with colorful representations of floral prints. She is also exhibiting a hyper-resolution, stop-action film that reveals the unfolding of the painting. Morales’s work was on view in a two-person show at Bravin Lee Programs, NY, in January 2012. She has also been featured in exhibitions at Daniel Weinberg Gallery and the Hammer Museum, both in Los Angeles, CA. Isabella Kirkland’s monumental canvases typically feature flora and fauna, painted life-size from first-hand observation to ensure accuracy of detail. Departing from her usual scale and process, for this exhibition the artist is making a group of framed watercolors measuring approximately five inches by seven inches. These images are drawn from photographs that she has taken of the Wild Garden. Kirkland is also producing a three foot by four foot oil painting of the magnificent view seen from the garden, with representations of endangered or threatened species of insects, birds and other animals in and among the flowers. Kirkland lives and works in Sausalito, CA. She has had solo exhibitions at Feature Inc., New York, NY; the Toledo Art Museum, Toledo, OH; and the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC. Erik Sanner is presenting a new media installation that involves computer-generated video based on time-lapse photography of the garden shot from spring to late summer. This mix of images results in an unpredictable, ever-changing montage that will be projected onto the artist’s paintings of the late summer garden. Sanner’s project expands on his technique of creating ―moving paintings‖ by focusing on a specific site, in this case the variable landscape of the Wild Garden. He has had a solo show at Carmichael Gallery in LA (2011), and is represented by LICHT FELD in Basel, Switzerland. Sanner's work is included in the East Wing X exhibit at the Courtauld Institute in London through July 2013. He has received two Manhattan Community Arts Fund Grants from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Anat Shiftan is creating an index of plants in the Wild Garden, by making a series of columnar, ceramic vase forms that are glazed with botanical drawings in cobalt blue. The shape of the forms is modern but the porcelain and cobalt technique refers to traditional ceramics. Shiftan is an Israeli artist living in New Paltz, NY. Her work was included in two recent ceramics shows at the Clay Art Center in Port Chester, NY, and at Flushing Town Hall in Queens, NY. She has had solo exhibitions at Greenwich House Pottery in New York and The Clay Studio in Philadelphia. Anat Shiftan, Blue Garden, 2011 MORE/ -3- Schedule of Free Public Programs All the public programs listed here are offered free with admission to the grounds, and do not require prior reservation. Artist Talks Sundays, June 3 and July 22, 3PM These informal talks in the gallery offer the public an opportunity to hear artists discuss the work on view, the ideas that inspired them and their artistic process. A Director’s View of the Wild Garden Thursday, June 28, 1PM Don’t miss this special tour of the Wild Garden with Director of Horticulture Scott Canning. Gain some fascinating insight into the planning and management required to keep this garden so ―natural‖. Guided Gallery Tours Tuesdays and Saturdays, 2PM Family Tours Saturdays, April 7, May 5, June 9, July 21, August 8, 1PM Combined Gallery & Wild Garden Tours Saturdays, April 28, June 23, July 7, August 4, and on Monday, Century-old “Naturalistic” Landscape May 28 (Memorial Day), 2PM A century ago, George Walbridge Perkins and his These tours will be led by an exhibition interpreter and a gallery Viennese-trained gardener Albert Millard designed guide. the gardens of Wave Hill, uniting three separate properties into one estate through plantings and Walks on the Wild Side new physical structures. With formal beds across Thursdays, April 12, May 10, July 12, August 9, 2PM what is now the Lower Lawn, a rose garden where Special tours of the Wild Garden with Horticultural Interpreter our Flower Garden now flourishes, kitchen gardens Charles Day or Assistant Director of Public Programs Laurel below Wave Hill House, fewer trees and straight Rimmer introduce visitors to William Robinson’s concept of the paths throughout, the Wild Garden stood out not ―Wild Garden‖ in seasonal context. Discover why, more than a just as the highest point on the estate, but as a century after his book The Wild Garden was first published, this destination to discover. Photo credit Mick Hales. naturalistic style of gardening is even more relevant than ever. Wild Garden-related Family Art Projects Saturdays, Sundays, 10AM‒1PM April 14, 15: Go Wild Garden/Un jardin salvaje April 28, 29: Primitive Prints/Impresiones primitivas May 19, 20: Shake a Flower, Wear a Garden/Dándole forma su jardín June 9, 10: Playful Petals/Pétalos juguetones (title and description will be adjusted to tie into the show) June 30, July 1: Glow a Wild Garden/ [need Spanish title] *********************************** Fee-based Programs Reservations required, online at www.wavehill.org, onsite at the Perkins Visitor center or by calling 718.549.3200 x305.