Artists: Grey Crawford, KwieKulik, Teresa Murak, Riitta Päiväläinen, Finnbogi Pétursson, Ragna Róbertsdóttir, Anna Rún Tryggvadóttir, Ryszard Wasko
The Art World of the 1960-70’s experienced a healthy transformation in perception with the emergence of Performance and Land Art. These new modes of artistic expression challenged the traditional white cube scenario of what art is and how it should be exhibited. Using our natural environment as its own stage for creative interpretations in whatever form, helped in laying the foundations in how art is perceived in this century.
Searching for the Shapes Within, is a group exhibition presented by Persons Projects, that focuses on the earth as a common base for these different artistic interventions. What we see, breathe and stand on is part of the natural world we build our state of being from. Yet in reality it’s a combination of numerous elements and shapes all converging together to form an environment that’s in constant flux. What all these artists share in common is a mutual sense for experimentation that creates new frames for thought. Their works form a 50-year timeline, beginning in the early 1970’s up until the present, that engages in a joined dialogue that spans from California, Iceland, Finland, Poland to Israel. They share a collective approach in how they use our natural landscape as the basic material for their frames of thinking. These pieces find their beginnings from the Mojave (California) and Negev (Israel) deserts, onto the glaciers of Iceland, back to the forests of Finland and finally to the rolling hills of Poland. Their bond is not bound by a place, rather a cognitive approach in understanding the aspects of meaning through the process of doing. Their methodologies may differ yet they all share a performance like sensibility in the realization of the final image. These works represent personal stages without borders, where there is no other audience but the future.