Sharon Horvath
Sharon Horvath - Bubble Up: July 24 - August 13, 2015.
The Albert Merola Gallery is happy to announce the opening of an exhibition of new work by Sharon Horvath. This will be Horvath’s first one person exhibition at the gallery.
A trip to India prompted by her receipt of a Fulbright Research fellowship in 2013 inspired a wealth of drawings and changes in her work. Malayalam is the language of the area in southern India where she spent time traveling and visiting some of the ancient temples. The remnants of the handwritten marks and notations of the ledger paper are the foundation of her subsequent painting, drawing and collage. Horvath makes her own paints with pigments and uses ink and collage on the Indian paper which is then mounted. The bright, colorful circles and shapes dance and interact in a joyful way - each work standing on its own while adding to the impact of the entire room of paintings. Some of the forms are actually paint cast from everyday plates or old cut glass objects, or vinyl records. This contributes to the idea of a circle - both in form as well as in spirit - from the original paper maker to the unknown writer who first used it, to Sharon, who forms some of her paint shapes from an etched piece of glass that was originally designed by another unknown artist, or from a record that can’t be played - music that is ‘recorded’, yet unknowable. A suggestion of music and sound. Even Malayalam itself is a palindrome - the same forwards and backwards, it is its own circle. The process becomes a kind of focused meditation for the artist, and the finished work becomes an expression of that process, as well as an entirely new entity on its own, perhaps becoming a new focus of thought and meditation for the viewer. Concentration, meditation, inspiration, celebration, liberation of the mind forming beauty for the eye and soul.
Horvath is an associate professor at Purchase College, SUNY. She has been the recipient of two Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grants, a Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, and other prestigious awards. She was a Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in 1986-87.
A trip to India prompted by her receipt of a Fulbright Research fellowship in 2013 inspired a wealth of drawings and changes in her work. Malayalam is the language of the area in southern India where she spent time traveling and visiting some of the ancient temples. The remnants of the handwritten marks and notations of the ledger paper are the foundation of her subsequent painting, drawing and collage. Horvath makes her own paints with pigments and uses ink and collage on the Indian paper which is then mounted. The bright, colorful circles and shapes dance and interact in a joyful way - each work standing on its own while adding to the impact of the entire room of paintings. Some of the forms are actually paint cast from everyday plates or old cut glass objects, or vinyl records. This contributes to the idea of a circle - both in form as well as in spirit - from the original paper maker to the unknown writer who first used it, to Sharon, who forms some of her paint shapes from an etched piece of glass that was originally designed by another unknown artist, or from a record that can’t be played - music that is ‘recorded’, yet unknowable. A suggestion of music and sound. Even Malayalam itself is a palindrome - the same forwards and backwards, it is its own circle. The process becomes a kind of focused meditation for the artist, and the finished work becomes an expression of that process, as well as an entirely new entity on its own, perhaps becoming a new focus of thought and meditation for the viewer. Concentration, meditation, inspiration, celebration, liberation of the mind forming beauty for the eye and soul.
Horvath is an associate professor at Purchase College, SUNY. She has been the recipient of two Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grants, a Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, and other prestigious awards. She was a Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in 1986-87.
