Markku Kosonen

Willow Wave Basket

1994

Wood was integral to the artistic practice of the late Markku Kosonen of Finland. An important aspect of his work was the ability to express things; cra...

Panier-maison II, Stéphanie Jacques, wood, willow, raw clay coated and limewash, 17" x 20" x 15", 2010. This contemporary abstract mixed media sculpture was done by Belgian artist, ...

The freestanding sculptures in this portfolio are made from the “sticks”: a pile of found wood that Sweibel has been pulling from to make new works since about 2002. The pile consisted of more than a dozen four- to seven-foot lengths of hardwood, each an uneven inch in depth and width. The sticks were warped, with worn yellow paint on one side and raw wood on the other three. Over the years she has painted the raw sides of the sticks, cut the wood into shorter lengths, and sliced paint off – and kept the residue from these actions. Sweibel has also made sculptures ranging from full-length sticks to tiny stick splinters. She built these sculptures using sliced-off paint. Timeworn materials and objects have an intelligence that the artist looks for and listens to. Shaping and reshaping material to find new form and elicit new insights in the material itself is the territory she is mining. The limitations of the process are its strengths. Her work is concerned with fragility, precariousness, adaptability, and strength. It is a visual response to powerful yet unseen forces - like wind and thoughts - that threaten, propel, ruin, and protect. Liz Sweibel is a multidisciplinary artist working in drawing, sculpture, installation, and digital photography and video. Her spare, personal language of abstraction transforms ordinary materials into statements about connectedness and responsibility: every action has an impact, the effects persist in space and over time, and we are accountable. By drawing attention to simple, ordinary “stuff of life” and referencing both shared and personal history, Sweibel’s work explores and reflects back fundamental experiences in response to our world and relationships. Her intention is to reinvigorate viewers’ awareness of the everyday – in its raw beauty and precariousness – in hopes that they might bring heightened senses of sight and care to their daily lives. Sweibel has participated in solo, two-person, and group exhibits in New York, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, Michigan, and Tennessee since 1998. In 2016, Sweibel’s work was in the group shows Lightly Structured at Sculpture Space NYC, Precarious Constructs at the Venus Knitting Art...

Over many decades Loren Eiferman has created and mastered a unique technique of working with wood—her primary material. First, she begins with a drawing of an idea. Then she takes a daily walk in the woods surrounding her studio and collects tree limbs and long sticks that have fallen to the ground. She never chops down a living tree or uses green wood. Eiferman allows the wood time to cure in the studio to make sure it won’t check or crack. Next, she debarks the branch and looks for shapes found within each piece of wood. Using a Japanese hand saw, she cuts and connect these small shapes together using dowels and wood glue. Then, all the open joints get filled with a home made putty, which is then sanded so she can see the newly formed shapes. This process is until the new sculpture appears like the original line drawing but in space. She wants the work to appear as if it grew in nature, when in fact each sculpture is composed of over 100 small pieces of wood that are seamlessly jointed together. Her work can be called the ultimate recycling: taking the detritus of nature and giving it a new life. We have all at one point or another picked up a stick from the ground—touched the wood, peeled the bark off with our fingernails. Her work taps into that same primal desire of touching nature and being close to it. Trees connect us back to nature, back to this Earth. Her work has a meditative quality to it—a quiet, calming energy. Her influences are many; from looking at nature and plant life on this Earth to researching the heavenly bodies in the images beamed back from the Hubble Telescope. From studying ancient Buddhist mandalas and designs to delving deeper into quantum physics. And from researching mysterious manuscripts to studying the patterns inside our brains. For Invocation, we are exhibiting her newest body of work, inspired by the illustrations found in the Voynich Manuscript. This 250-page book, is believed to have been written in the early 15th century, of a mysterious origin and purpose. Written in an unknown language and currently housed at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book Library, the manuscript has eluded all attempts in the intervening centuries to decode or decipher its purpose and meaning. This enigmatic book is divided into 6 different sections (herbal, astronomical, biological, cosmological, pharmaceutical and recipes). Having discovered the images contained in this codex over the Internet, Eiferman felt an immediate, profound and inexplicable connection to this manuscript and its creator. The artist is currently transposing the “herbal” section of manuscript into sculptures. This section has drawings in it of plants and flowers that do not really exist in nature—past or present. These aren’t just pretty images of flowers—they also contain the wacky root systems and seemingly out of proportion leaves, stamens and pistils. Loren Eiferman was born in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA from SUNY Purchase. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout the Tri-State region including gallery and museum exhibitions in the Hudson Valley and Connecticut. Her work is included in numerous corporate and private art collections. In 2014 she was awarded a NYC MTA Arts & Design art commission to produce steel railings...