March 27–April 21, 2012
Barbara + Steven Grossman Gallery
230 The Fenway, Boston
Hours: Mon–Sat, 10 am–5 pm;
Thurs 10 am–8 pm;
closed Sundays + holidays
A collaborative exhibition between the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (SMFA) and Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music, Nagoya, Japan, “Forms in Flux” features three artists from each respective institution—from Aichi University, Hisashi Kurachi, Nobuyuki Osaki, and Noriyori Shirakawa and from SMFA, Patte Loper, Michelle Samour, and Jennifer Schmidt—whose work addresses concepts of transformation, and whose collective practices become newly recontextualized among their fellow exhibitors.
On view March 27–April 21, 2012, “Forms in Flux” provides a meeting place for something new to be created from two geographically distant locations. Working on opposite sides of the globe, in different media and in different cultural contexts, these artists address issues of transformation, change and fluidity of perception.
Hisashi Kurachi‘s prints re-imagine organic and manmade figurative forms provoking a sense of uncertainty where reality and familiarity are put into question. Noriyori Shirakawa is an expert researcher on painting materials and techniques, and his paintings evoke symbolic associations with light and memory, relying on each to conjure new understandings for the viewer. Nobuyuki Osaki’s work uses painting, video and sculptural installation to create colorful, dissolving drawings which disappear gradually, giving physical form to the shifting nature of form and perception.
Inspired by images from popular culture, such as film stills and magazine photos, Patte Loper paints complex scenes in which time stops to reveal and expand upon the real and the imagined. Michelle Samour‘s works have their roots in scientific illustration and collection—from the growing, symmetrical forms in Aggregations to the interactive installation Windows, which invites viewers to manipulate and reconfigure glass slides to create their own visual discovery. Jennifer Schmidt‘s engagement with plaid patterns, in both screenprints and video, reveals a mood-ring-like color spectrum performatively and intuitively determined through artistic process, whim and effect, drawing viewers into its expansive field of chromatic fluctuation.
RELATED EVENTS
Opening reception: March 26, 6–8 pm
Public talk with exhibiting artists: March 27, 5:30–7 pm
For more information, visit www.smfa.edu/formsinflux.
About the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston:
Founded in 1876 and accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (SMFA), is one of only three art schools in the country affiliated with a major museum—the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Our mission is to provide an education in the fine arts—for undergraduate and graduate artists—that is interdisciplinary and self-directed. This education values cultural, artistic and intellectual diversity; it embraces a wide range of media; it stresses the development of individual vision and its relation to culture in general; it values equally the knowledge gained by thinking and doing; it is deeply engaged with the world as a whole. If the mission is constant, its practice is always transforming.
About Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music:
Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music was established in 1966, with the aim of creating a distinctive cultural sphere spanning East and West while contributing to the development of culture in its home of Aichi Prefecture, an area renowned for its industrial economy. The University’s objectives since its founding are “the cultivation of artistic creativity on the basis of art-related studies, along with studies of applied art, to contribute to the advancement of culture.”
