Opening and Artist Reception: Ways of Seeing

Ways of Seeing will explore the many ways individuals envision and curate their contemporary art collections.
Browngrotta arts at 276 Ridgefield Road, Wilton, Connecticut, will explore the many ways individuals envision and curate their contemporary art collections. The gallery’s Fall 2024 “Art in the Barn” exhibition, Ways of Seeing, will sample different types of art selection criteria — by theme, by artist, by size. The gallery will present distinct groupings — The Art Aquatic, art influenced by water; Impact: Women Artists to Collect, accomplished artists from the US and abroad; and Right-Sized, art compiled with specific parameters in mind. The exhibitions will feature fiber, ceramics, and mixed media works by dozens of artists from the US and abroad. A full-color catalog will accompany the exhibition.

Collecting is a deeply human activity; it offers satisfaction on many levels. We prize the unique. We love the hunt. We get a thrill finding something precious or historically important or by scoring a prized work at an insider's price. Collecting can be a brain booster — involving research, study, and discipline. It’s also a mood changer — there are physical benefits to collecting based on aesthetic appreciation. Science tells us that viewing art we consider to be beautiful creates a surge of dopamine — the same chemical response that romantic love does. “Ways of Seeing celebrates the passion and individuality that spark and shape collections,” says co-curator Tom Grotta, "while offering collectors at all levels a wide selection vof works to appreciate and possibly acquire.”

Each work in The Art Aquatic, one of the exhibitions within Ways of Seeing, exists at the intersection of the artist's fascination with a variety of nautical themes and the artmaking process. Viewers will find imaginative uses of water-related materials: sculptures by Chris Drury of the UK — a kayak and paddle wrapped in salmon skin, Marian Bijlenga’s composition of fish scales, and Jeannet Leenderste’s baskets made of seaweed. Other works offer more abstract references to life in the deep, including Ulla-Maija Vikman’s “painting,” Biagga (Sea Wind), made of viscose threads in marine colors and Mariette Rousseau-Vermette’s Blue Water II, made of woven tubes of beachy blue, grey, white, and yellow. A third series of works offer watery imagery, like Judy Mulford’s Aging by the Sea which incorporates a conch shell and a tiny boat covered in knotless netting, Ed Rossbach’s Fish Trap Basket, with a whimsical fish motif, and the mermaid in Norma Minkowitz’s sculpture, My Cup Runneth Over.

More than 15 international women artists of substance and significance are heralded in Impact: Women Artists to Collect another of the groupings in Ways of Seeing at browngrotta arts this Fall. Impact will feature a multifaceted group of sculptures, tapestries, and mixed media works made from 1976 to 2024. The artists in Impact have demonstrated a knowledge of traditional and experimental techniques, while redefining the perception of textiles as fine art. “Each of these artists have enlarged the expectations and possibilities of fiber art through their singular, iconic practices,” says browngrotta arts co-curator, Tom Grotta. New works by Yeonsoon Chang of Korea, Carolina Yrarrázaval of Chile, and Polly Barton of the US, will be displayed in Impact, combined with earlier, seminal works by Kay Sekimachi, the late Adela Akers, and late Katherine Westphal of the US, Grethe Sørensen of Denmark, and Hisako Sekijima of Japan, and more.

Right-sized means to convert something to an appropriate or optimum size. A third exhibition within Ways of Seeing at browngrotta arts this Fall, Right-Sized, considers collections from this perspecitive. Right-Sized gathers works to fit specific size parameters and price points. Diversity is a hallmark -- in materials, techniques, and approaches. Right-Sized will feature a salon wall of ecletic works — framed, dimensional, unexpected — along with smaller groupings of curated items. In Right-Sized, viewers will find embroidery by Diane Itter, sculpture in sisal by Mia Olsson, paper by Noriko Takamiya, and willow by Lizzie Farey, and ceramics by Claude Vermette, in addition to spheres and boxes, and baskets of natural materials worthy of collecting in multiples.

Artists
list (in formation):
Jane Balsgaard (DK), Caroline Bartlett (UK), Polly Barton (US), Dail Behennah (UK), Annette Bellamy (US), Birgit Birkkjær (DK), Yeonsoon Chang (KR), Chris Drury (UK), Mutsumi Iwasaki (JP), Markku Kosonen (FI), Lilla Kulka (PL), Kyoko Kumai (JP), Sue Lawty (UK), Jeannet Lenderste (NL/US), Åse Ljones (NO), Kari Lønning (US), Aby Mackie (UK/SP), Keiji Nio (JP), Mia Olsson (SE), Ed Rossbach (US), Toshio Sekiji (Japan), Hisako Sekijima (JP), Kay Sekimachi (US), Naoko Serino (JP), Jin-Sook So (KR/SE), Grethe Sørensen (DK), Ethel Stein (US), Polly Sutton (US), Noriko Takamiya (JP), Hideho Tanaka (JP), Chiyoko Tanaka (JP), Mariette Rousseau-Vermette (CA), Claude Vermette (CA), Mercedes Vicente (SP), Ulla-Maija Vikman (FI), Katherine Westphal (US), Merja Winqvist (FI), Grethe Wittrock (DK), Jiro Yonezawa (JP), Carolina Yrarrázaval (CL),

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