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About the Exhibition
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Jennilie Brewster
We are our Stuff: Seeing from Above, 2011
Donated and collected books, clothing, paper, and other used material objects
Site-specific installation for the DCCA, Photo by Carson Zullinger
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Jennilie Brewster We are our Stuff: Seeing from Above DuPont II Gallery January 14 - May 22, 2011
In collaboration with Robert Prichard and working with a group of volunteers and students from the community, Brewster utilizes donated and collected materials to create an installation that addresses the cyclical nature of energy and matter, from weather patterns to landfills to the "stuff" with which we fill our lives. In her dramatic, swirling installation, Brewster investigates the intellectual versus the phenomenological-information that emerges out of rational and organized thought as opposed to that gained through the senses and direct experience. She does this by including objects that represent the everyday and objects that signify the intellectual. However, objects take on multiple levels of meaning. For instance, the installation includes a large number of books, ranging from novels to encyclopedias. Books encompass both aspects of our minds, the gathering of knowledge and information as well as the metaphysical, the parts of us that are about dreams, aspirations, even the spiritual. Brewster sets all of these objects-clothing, books, tossed email correspondence-against a painted background that includes visually moving forms and floating clouds. Layering paint, papers, objects, and books, Brewster suggests the complex systems of the universe. Viewers stand in the midst of this microcosm contemplating their place in the world and the complexity of a life caught between mundane objects and the power and majesty of nature. Brewster sees her work as emerging out of the nineteenth-century American landscape tradition and the later Abstract Expressionist movement. She comments on this installation and the desire to link the microcosm with the macrocosm and derive meaning from our lives: "The screen [of our lives] becomes a mirror for all of this . . . the vastness and fluidity of consciousness . . . and the desire to create meaning from this storm." -Susan J. Isaacs, PhD Curator of Special Projects
RELATED EVENTS Jennilie Brewster discusses her exhibition We are our Stuff: Seeing from Above Gallery Talk / Art Loop Night February 4, 2011 at 6:30 PM
About the Artist___________________
Jennilie Brewster ( Brooklyn, NY) SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2009 - Mapping the Empty, Area Gallery, University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME 2006 - Another Green World, Ward Center for the Arts, St. Paul's School, Brooklandville, MD SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2009 - HORIZON: Poetics of the Post-Heroic Landscape , University of Maine at Farmington, Farmington, ME - Prospects: An Exploration of Mining, Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Ketchum, ID - Landscape and Memory, Gallery Project, Ann Arbor, MI 2008 - AVA Gallery and Art Center, Lebanon, NH - Post-Petroleum: Envisioning the Future of Suburban Space in America, Sheppard Fine Arts Gallery, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 2007 - Whole Fragment, Sheppard Fine Arts Gallery, University of Nevada, Reno, NV - Borderlands & Landscapes, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE 2006 - Unimedia Modern Art, Genoa, Italy - Denatured, Broadway Gallery, NY 2005 - Systematic, Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA - Transubstantiation, Morsel, Brooklyn, NY 2004 - Because Cynicism Left Yesterday, Disjecta, Portland, OR - Paper Construction, S1 Artspace, Williamsburg, NY 2003 - Wet, S1 Artspace, Williamsburg, NY - Re-Interpreting Landscape, Office Ops, Brooklyn, NY SELECTED AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES 2010 - Artist-in-Residence, Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA 2009 - Artist-in-Residence, Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Ketchum, ID - Visiting Artist, University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME 2008 - Resident, Ucross Foundation, Clearmont, WY 2007 - Artist-in-Residence, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha,NE 2006 - Elaine de Kooning Memorial Fellowship, Bard College, Annandaleon-Hudson, NY - Visiting Artist, St. Paul's School, Baltimore, MD EDUCATION 2007 MFA, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 2002 BFA, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY |
