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PAST EXHIBITION
Sugarcraft
June 27, 2008—August 9, 2008
Press Release
Sugarcraft
Curated by Wynter Whiteside
June 27-August 9, 2008
Opening Reception June 27, 6-9 pm
kasia kay art projects gallery
1044 W Fulton Market St., Chicago
P. 312-492-8828
Exhibiting Artists: Brandy Agnew, Nikki Renee Anderson, Thomas Brouillette, Kris Chau, Sally Curcio, Christine Marie Davis,Stephanie Divencenzo, Bee Harris , James Jaxxa, Jay Krevens , My Paper Crane, Naoshi , Matt Neff, Kristin Pavelka, Connie Richards, Kathy Santiago of Everlasting Cakes, Mark Seaman of Marked for Dessert, Lindsey Sedlar, DeAnna Skedal, Amy Stevens, Isadora Stowe, Tilly Strauss, Jen Thomas, Colleen Toledano, Twinkie Chan!, Mirek Vlas, Wynter Whiteside
Miniature and small artworks by: Lindsey Ashpole *Edababe, Kandi Boda , Chrissy Brown, Polly Conway, *Pollyannacowgirl, Megumi Cummings of Sweet Honey Complex, Itzel Garza *Mcdoofus, Christine Green *Minimaker, April Hiraki-Morris *Pukashell, Mio Ishida *Miomio, Briana Moore *Nest, Diane Paone, Chiara Puppo *Aoisart, Elizabeth Raine of Eat Me Not, Sonicim, Jennifer Sternhagen *KungFuCowgirl, Alison Tennant, Joan Burge Wallick *CrashcanStudio, Emily-Kitturah Westenhouser, Tracy Yip *Meowgu Ong Xiao Yun
CHICAGO, IL: Since childhood, sugar has tantalized our senses of sight, smell and taste, offering a delicious form of comfort. Usually just empty calories, in Sugarcraft the sweet treat flavors a light yet substantive exploration of creation and consumption, whipped up by curator Wynter Whiteside and a large, diverse selection of artists from around the globe.
As Whiteside explains, “This exhibit is designed to playfully break boundaries, and to foster a dramatic interaction between artist, audience and the works themselves.”
Many of the participating artists represent the contemporary adoption of DIY practices as a response to mass production and consumption, as well as the fading line between contemporary fine art and fine craft. Using traditional or uncommon materials, including refined sugar, all encourage indulgence in eye candy and a playful conversation about the various aspects of taste. Casual viewers and art connoisseurs alike are invited to engage with both established and emerging artists.
Among the painters, Matt Neff collects wedding cakes into a pile of rosettes and bleeding colors and Isadora Stowe invokes a cake’s frosted layers as a personal symbol of subtle inter-familial divisions. The prolific Tilly Strauss adds ice cream with a visceral piece from “A Month of Sundaes,” a series that came to life in public view.
Sweetness in texture and sculptural form is laid out smorgasbord style, including a fur delicacy from Christine Marie Davis, James Jaxxa’s cupcake fake-outs in Styrofoam and glass and a plush crying cake from My Paper Crane. Another anthropomorphized pastry is made noisily cannibalistic in a video by Kathy Santiago’s Everlasting Cakes. Contributing works that are partly or wholly edible desserts, Whiteside and cake stylist Mark Seaman bring the sensual experience of Sugarcraft full circle.
With The Candy Shoppe!, a miniature marketplace of items from exhibiting artists and DIY crafters featured by Columbus-based show sponsor Wholly Craft!, and a wide range of price points starting at seven dollars, the curator hopes to create an irresistible temptation in gallery visitors to take a taste of the exhibition to go.
On Curator...
Wynter Whiteside is a graduate of the Columbus College of Art and Design Fine Arts Program, with independent studies in Contemporary Art, and study abroad at Burren College of Art, Ballyvaughn, Ireland. During her emergence from the Columbus gallery scene, Wynter undertook the curation of several uniquely themed, multimedia gallery exhibits, featuring both established and emerging artists, performers and musicians. The resulting critical acclaim, as well as Wynter's genuine passion for discovering new talent, has furthered her professional career as an independent curator.
Her current project, Sugarcraft, is an international exhibition that symphonizes the worlds of Fine Art, Contemporary Fine Craft, and the Culinary Arts. Sugarcraft has evolved, from an invitation to guest curate into a travelling exhibit featuring over fifty artists. Sugarcraft will be hosted by Kasia Kay Art Projects, Chicago, IL in spring 2008, with other dates and venues pending. Wynter is a featured artist in Sugarcraft. Her mixed media paint-based works have been featured in galleries throughout the Midwest including (most recently) at Urban Institute of Contemporary Art (MI), the Carnegie (KY), Roy G. Biv Gallery (OH), Mahan Gallery (OH), and Ohio Art League. Her work has appeared in several juried exhibitions, most notably by Claudine Ise (Wexner Center for the Arts), Joe Houston (Columbus Museum of Art), and Manifest Gallery (for Whimsical Muse, 2007). Wynter's works have also appeared in various experimental, nonprofit venues.
Exhibition Highlights:
Mark Seaman is a cake stylist and sugar artist for Libertyville’s Marked for Dessert. Winner of the 2007 National Wedding Cake Competition, he devotes hundreds of hours to each of his edible artworks. For this exhibition, Seaman has been commissioned to create a multi-tiered cake of fondant and sugar.
With each new piece, potter-turnedassemblage artist Christine Marie Davis out of Howard, CO, begins a fresh hunt for found objects that speak to her. To these she adds surprising, enticing tactile elements and hard surfaces, such as the fake fur under glass cake dome in Strawberry Surprise.
Columbus Ohio-based artist and curator Wynter Whiteside creates paintings that look good enough to eat. Against natural canvas, images of edibles and decorative elements are adorned by glitter and paint that’s tinted and applied like frosting. With Entryway, a painting surrounded with small shelves of fresh cupcakes, she creates a means of direct interaction with viewers, an opportunity to literally absorb her work.
Bathing his subjects in a pure, soothing light source, New York painter Thomas Brouilette presents them as somehow skewed or off. His unexpected choices in perspective, hue and finish push the limits of what is acceptable to maintain an illusion of real space.
Under the banner of My Paper Crane, Waynesboro, PA artist Heidi Kenney gives birth to a population of wide-eyed inanimate objects in plush. With Pink Cake Crying, she contrasts nubby fabrics and fine stitching with the pain and separation anxiety felt by a recently cut layer cake and its missing piece.
Naoshi is a Yokohama-based graphic artist who works in the Japanese medium of sunae, or sand painting. To this exhibition she contributes her whimsical original superhero creation Ice Cream Man, as well as a selection of vibrant, childlike cutout figures.
Alison Tennant from Wallasey, Wirral, UK, shares the fruits of her lifelong love of anything miniaturized. Taking polymer clay in hand (molds are never used), she shapes a mouthwatering array of exquisitely detailed cakes and candies made 1:12 scale. Tennant is a member of Custom Dolls House Miniatures and the International Guild for Miniature Artisans.
To reflect the feminine experience of childhood and adolescence, Chicago’s Nikki Renee Anderson revisits the words of Mother Goose for her most recent work. The sculpture series melds what little girls are made of physically and figuratively (sugar, spice, everything nice) into a soft-serve confection of creamy eroticized form and candy-colored coating.
'The Sleepy Ice Cream Cone' by Polly Conway
'Modern Bride' by Matt Neff
'Eye Candy' by Sally Curcio
Highlights of The Candy Shoppe
Chrissy Brown's Candy Shoppe Items
'Mint Chocolate Cake Charm' by Itzel Garza
'Sunae Large Stickers' by Naoshi
-PR Written by Melissa Starker (Arts Editor of Columbus Alive)
*SC Logo Design by Emily-Kitturah Westenhouser
Please contact the gallery for additional information and high resolution images, and visit
www.sugarcraftproject.com for additional information.
Contact: kasia kay art projects, 1044 West Fulton Market Street, Chicago, IL 60607.
Ph: 312-492-8828 info@kasiakayartprojects.com, www.kasiakayartprojects.com |
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