Crossing Borders: Comparing Thoughts Elizabeth Geissler • USA Juliet Armstrong • South Africa Ian Calder • South Africa Vulindlela Philani Elliot Nyoni • South Africa/Zimbabwe

Here, There, and Everywhere: Anticipating the Art of The Future

Monday, April 6 - Thursday, April 30, 2009

Hampden Studio Gallery   
Free

Crossing Borders: Comparing Thoughts Elizabeth Geissler • USA Juliet Armstrong • South Africa Ian Calder • South Africa Vulindlela Philani Elliot Nyoni • South Africa/Zimbabwe To date, Geissler has forwarded a digital collage to Calder. The piece loosely depicts Calder's farm a subject that Calder often portrays in his own watercolors, which also incorporate shards from his ceramic work. Frequently, according to Calder, “These refer to the many battlefields- historical and contemporary-of KwaZulu-Natal. I do not want to dwell morbidly on KwaZulu-Natal's many iconic sites of internecine conflict, violence and destruction, but rather to think about battlefields as metaphors for regeneration." Another piece began with Geissler transposing Nyoni's symbolic selfportrait Black Icarus onto plexi glass, which she then mounted over her painting with dowels so that the transferred print sits above her piece, casting shadows, but still allowing both images to be seen clearly. Geissler images correspond to Nyoni's imagery and reflect upon such notions as time passing, the self in relation to the infinite and our associations with nature. Armstrong usually works with bone china and porcelain as she is “particularly interested in using the translucent qualities achieved through the high firing of both these media...[to] reflect light ." For this collaboration, however, she decided to work with the more robust and transport-friendly medium of glass to translate Geissler's colors and ideas into the form of a protective apron inspired by the native Zulu dress.