The Racine Art Museum Explores
the Comforting Feeling of Wood
Out on a Limb: Contemporary Wood Jewelry
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Edgar Mosa, The Hours, 2010, Wood, 12 x 12 x 3 inches, Courtesy Galerie Louise Smit, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Photography: Edgar Mosa
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Long utilized in wearable objects, wood immediately connects the body to the natural landscape. This versatile material offers compelling color, pattern, and texture as well as a pliable surface to manipulate. Open through June 17, 2012, Out on a Limb: Contemporary Wood Jewelry features the work of emerging and established artists that use wood as the primary medium for creating jewelry and adornment.
Those whose works are featured in this exhibition are drawn to the material for both conceptual and aesthetic reasons. Whether carving, painting, appropriating, or otherwise manipulating it, they stretch the boundaries of how we understand this familiar material. Wood's historical uses, its flexibility as a surface, and its connection to so many elements of our environment and experience (e.g. trees, furniture, homes, and more), make it a rich substance for a variety of material and metaphorical investigations.
Artists whose works are featured in Out on Limb include: Michael Dale Bernard, Liv Blavarp, Christine Brandt, Gillion Carrara, Sharon Church, Daniel DiCaprio, Julia Harrison, Sukyo Jang, Bruce Metcalf, Edgar Mosa, Tina Rath, Gustav Reyes, Julia Turner, Flora Vagi, and Julia Walter.
More Contemporary Comforts at RAM
Each year, the Racine Art Museum welcomes the newest gifts of artworks to its contemporary craft collection with a debut exhibition. Open through May 6, Sitting Pretty: Furniture from RAM's Collection celebrates the arrival of a number of recent gifts of handmade furniture.
In the late 20th century, conceptual boundaries between furniture and sculpture blurred as pieces began to look less and less traditional, and artists employed new materials and processes. Sitting Pretty offers a diverse sampling of artwork that reflects the complexity of contemporary furniture.
Also, RAM is pleased to be one of five museums nationwide to host the first major retrospective of ceramic artist Karen Karnes. Open through May 27, 2012, A Chosen Path: The Ceramic Art of Karen Karnes features 69 dramatic salt-glazed masterworks from this pioneering artist whose lengthy career continues into its seventh decade.
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