Updates

Work Friends II

Posted by Eleanor

I’m curating a show at Fluorescent Gallery in Knoxville, opening Friday March 31 at 6:00 p.m.

Poster - Work Friends 2

Work Friends II is the second iteration of a show put together in an empty storefront on Broadway in 2013 called “Work Friends“. The original show featured the paintings, sculptures, and photos of ten Knoxville artists along with an item chosen as a partner to their work; a “work friend”.

Each artist was asked to display something that has a relationship to their process or aesthetic. The resulting talismans, detritus, and practical tools expanded the work, and served as a link to the creative incubator that is the studio. For this show, six Knoxville artists (or those recently of Knoxville) have been asked to do the same.

Artists

Amanda Carrell
Peter Cotroneo
Kelly Hider
Jonathan Purtill
Jing Qin
Zach Searcy

New interview published on The Glassblock

Posted by Eleanor
Barbara Weissberger cradles a laptop opened to a skype video call with Eleanor Aldrich smiling
Photo by David Bernabo.

Barbara Weissberger and I were recently interviewed by David Bernabo for Glassblock, a web magazine based in Pittsburgh, PA.

We talked about our ongoing long-distance material collaboration, beginning at the Drawing Center, and our latest installation Dirty Work, opening at the University Gallery at Pitt next week.

Check out the interview for more information and images of our work. We also recently launched a new website to document our collaborative installations at aldrichweissberger.wordpress.com

Dirty Work

February 9 – March 23 2017

Opens February 9 at the University Art Gallery,
104 Frick Fine Arts Building, University of Pittsburgh

Dirty Work is the third collaborative installation by artists Eleanor Aldrich and Barbara Weissberger. In it they continue to explore the tension between illusion and the actual; the dynamic relationship between material and image; and art production as work.

uag.pitt.edu

GIRLS FAVORITE at Fluorescent Gallery, Knoxville

Posted by Eleanor

GIRLS FAVORITE

Curated by Ashley Layendecker
A exciting collection of female artist who use pattern and repetition in their artwork in some form of abstraction. Fifteen artists currently working in Knoxville and Nashville Tennessee, Texas, Alabama and New York.

Artists:
Amanda Martinez
Jessica Simorte
Kayla Rumpp
Megan White
Heather Casteel
Marta Lee
Natalie Harrison
Marisa Hricovsky
Anna Weible
Lynne Ghenov
Katherine Wagner
Paris Woodhull
Brianna Bass
Eleanor Aldrich
Kate Faulkner

Fluorescent Gallery
627 N Central St
Knoxville, TN, 37917

OPENING: Friday the 3rd, 6-9:30 PM
Food and drink provided!

‘The Denisovans’ reviewed

Posted by Eleanor

Joe Nolan recently reviewed my solo show at Channel to Channel in Nashville for the Atlanta-based art journal BURNAWAY:

Eleanor Aldrich’s new exhibition at Channel to Channel in Nashville is one of the boldest and most intense painting exhibitions I’ve seen this year. These are spectacularly gooey works that revel in their own painted surfaces. Aldrich’s figures are revealed in thick, frosting-like curves and striated textures that imply abstract limbs and torsos. The overall effect is less fleshy and more abstract than Lucian Freud, but the obscured faces here remind me of Francis Bacon’s sense of mute existential agony. There’s even a hooded figure here that recalls Philip Guston. But Aldrich’s work is also full of vibrant colors, light, and shiny surfaces—Aldrich mixes her oil paints with caulk. These qualities and techniques bring a plastic artificiality to these works that makes them feel thoroughly contemporary.

Read the rest of the review at burnaway.org.

The show will continue to be on view at Channel to Channel in Nashville, Tennessee, through September 22.

Non-Prophet at Sella-Granata Art Gallery Sept. 8 – 29

Posted by Eleanor

Been busy this week installing my latest show, Non-Prophet at the Sella-Granata Art Gallery on the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa.

The show is open today, September 8, through September 29. Also on view is Dennis Ritter’s Daily Objects: Index and Context.

An opening reception will be held September 8 from 4-6 pm.

Non-Prophet plays with the idea of the labor that happens in DIY or non-profit spaces, and its homonym—prophet—which implies the speaking of truth to power, and has a spiritual connection. My work grapples with truth through its use of the actual against illusion, and by presenting the complexity of fine art in relation to the politics of labor; as painting is both labor and leisure. My work is anti-prophetic in that it isn’t instructive; rather, it lays out the complexities of reality, power, and mystery in a way that is at times funny, revolting, and beautiful.

Vacuum Shop Studios Exhibition at Pellissippi State Community College

Posted by Eleanor

Originally posted by vaccuumshopstudios:

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The artists of the Vacuum Shop Studios will be exhibiting their work August 22 – September 9 at the Bagwell Center Gallery on the Pellissippi State Community College main campus. Gallery hours are Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6:30 p.m.

A closing reception will be held on Friday, September 9, from 4 – 7 pm.

The Vacuum Shop Studios artists are:
Eleanor Aldrich
Heather Hartman
Kelly Hider
Ashton Ludden
Erin Mullenex
Chelsie Nunn
Deb Rule
Jessie Van der Laan

Solo show at Channel to Channel opening Aug. 6

Posted by Eleanor

My work will be returning to the Wedgewood-Houston arts district in Nashville again, this time for a solo show at Channel to Channel, 427 Chestnut St Suite 302, Nashville, TN 37211.

The show will be up through September, and open for the first Saturday art crawls. The opening reception will be August 6 from 6-9pm with my artist talk starting at 8pm.

Channel To Channel is a contemporary art gallery and studio presenting bold, challenging work by local and regional artists. Based in Nashville’s growing Wedgewood-Houston arts district, Channel To Channel also provides a casual, comfortable space where artists can experiment and explore their creativity at monthly open-studio drawing sessions.

mysterious flight of the peacock at Coop Gallery

Posted by Eleanor

My work has been selected for an upcoming group show in Nashville, presented by LOCATE Arts and curated by Mike Calway-Fagen:

LOCATE Arts presents: mysterious flight of the peacock including the work of Mika Agari, Eleanor Aldrich, Devin Balara, Coriana Close, Jennifer Danos, Elysia Mann, Christopher Miner, Corkey Sinks, and Tad Lauritzen Wright. The impetus for Calway-Fagen’s selection process was the synchronicity of the artists work with a poem by contributing artist, Elysia Mann entitled anticipation.

Mike Calway-Fagen is an artist, writer, and curator. He received his BFA from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and an MFA from the University of California in San Diego. In the past year Mike opened solo exhibitions at Ditch Projects in Oregon, Lipscomb University in Tennessee, and a two-person project at the Soo Visual Arts Center in Minneapolis. His recent curatorial projects include, Sounds Like, State Park and First Person in Indianapolis, IN, San Diego, CA and Nashville, TN respectively.

The show opens 6 pm, May 7 at Coop Gallery (507 Hagan Street) in Nashville.

Two Interviews

Posted by Eleanor

Barbara Weissberger and I were interviewed by Charlie Smith recently about ‘Hive and Double’, our collaborative work currently on view in Providence, RI at GRIN Contemporary.

I also had the opportunity to interview Nashville-based Paul Collins about his work for the LOCATE Arts website. LOCATE Arts focuses on and promotes contemporary artists working in each region of Tennessee.

Links:

Barbara Weissberger
Charlie Smith
Paul Collins

‘Hive and Double’ opens March 26

Posted by Eleanor

My most recent collaborations with Barbara Weissberger will be on display at GRIN, in Providence Rhode Island.

In Hive and Double, Aldrich and Weissberger present an collaborative body of work about the installation or exhibition of large work that blurs the lines between production and product.  Touching on the tension between the possibilities of the studio and the singularity of the installed work,  their output is about artistic production and labor in post-industrial studios and DIY exhibition spaces . In addition to the physical labor involved in dealing with substances, there is a consideration of preserving space for mystery, the unexpected, and the phenomenological.

The opening reception is this upcoming Saturday, March 26, from 6 – 9 pm. Hope to see you there.

 

Links