Burnaway just posted this video of me working on one of the large scale artist books for my show Docking on the Orphic Shore at whitespace in Atlanta. The show is up through October 15th.
September 9 – October 15, 2016
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
– Wendell Berry
Docking on the Orphic Shore is a collection of works by Seana Reilly exploring a place that does not lend itself to easy exposition, though many have tried to point the way by indirection. The Greeks told stories of Eurydice and Persephone in the underworld; the Zen masters posed riddles with one hand clapping; the Sufis joked about fishing in a barrel – all in an effort to touch lightly on this place without contaminating or burdening it.
The Orphic Shore cannot be approached entirely from one path, be it words, music, religion, math, philosophy, theoretical physics, or so many other toeholds. Discussions between these endeavors are often centered around boundaries and exclusions – the “yes, but”. The Orphic Shore is decidedly “yes, and”. Every one of these fields of inquiry, within its given parameters, adds to the exploration of this untethered place of human potential and awakening.
Reilly has chosen to approach this far shore by means of visual imagery resulting from a communion with the movement of water and earth. By subjecting her materials to the forces that drive the evolution of the earth, she creates imagery that is similar to the actual patterns carved into the surface of the planets, though on a much smaller temporal and spatial scale, one which she can hold in her hands. These explorations manifest in a variety of forms, from small works on paper to large hand-bound books full of pools and cascades of liquid graphite. She has little control over this liquid medium which continuously moves and changes, eventually settling into fixed patterns that could have been a thousand different things at any given moment. This body of work is the artist’s personal meditation on releasing control, giving up attachment to outcomes, and finding equanimity and peace by immersing the self in the transitory and the actual.
Whitespace Gallery
814 Edgewood Ave. NE
Atlanta, GA 30307
Hambidge was my very first residency. Come out and support a good cause. This is the piece I’ve placed in the auction:
ATTAN, a metal band from Oslo, Norway, will be using one of my paintings for their debut EP release in November. Here’s the metalsucks.net blog post.
from the label:
Shelsmusic is extremely excited to present “From Nothing” in all it’s dark, grittiness on 300 Limited Edition Vinyl copies on November 30, 2015 at shelsmusic. The album will also be available for digital download in all good places. ATTAN’s debut EP is set for a November 30th release through Shelsmusic. If you have any questions or would like to request a promo or press release for review please email press@shelsmusic.com.
Here’s my donation to the cause. It’s the first foray into a new body of work…. something small to start with. Hm, it looked very blue to me until it’s sitting right under this cobalt auction banner. Abyssal.o1, graphite and pigment on aluminum panel, 12″x12″.
The source painting on the left is InvoilateRush and on the right StellarFlare. Thanks to both Dr. Shadow JQ Robinson & Tracey Fortune for lending the works back so I could get highres scans.
(front & back of EP)
Art Papers Auction (photo: David Stedman)
