The Chazan Gallery @ Wheeler will be presenting a group show entitled Works on Paper featuring artists Michelle Benoit, Deborah Forman, Diane Hoffman, Allison Kyner, Nancy Simonds, and Susanne Tierney from October 22 through November 12, 2004. There will be an opening reception for the artists on Friday, October 22 from 5 - 7 p.m. The public is invited.

Michelle Benoit works with mixed media to represent time. In her sculptural work with paper, she sets up an environment by arranging, rearranging, exposing, integrating, and preserving these collected articles within an architectural space. Benoit received a BFA from Rhode Island College and a MFA from the University of Iowa in 2000.

 

Deborah Forman’s work explores movement through language or pattern and landscape. She juxtaposes dichotomies like flatness with depicted space, appropriation with gesture, and softness with sharp edges. In this she hopes to “create a complex dialogue between stillness and flux: the tangible and intangible. Her drawings are done in various media including pastel, gouache, and marker. Forman received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 1992, an art education degree from Massachusetts College of Art in 1996 and a MFA from Parsons School of Design in 2001.

 

Diane Hoffman uses nontraditional painting techniques such as dripping, pooling, marbling, scraping, sanding, and blind drawings. Through these methods she is able to create complex forms that show that art can be understood as “a process of exploration, repetition and memory. Hoffman received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 1987 and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1993.

Allison Kyner portrays the conditions of the human body. The series of drawings exhibited at the Wheeler Gallery are from a recent series title, “Are we getting better or worse?” They are based on implant and focus on cells, tumors, and organs. These mixed media drawings are shown with larger anatomical drawings on vellum. Kyner received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 1991.

Nancy Simonds will exhibit a series of abstract gouaches on paper called “Aggregate / Stack.” The series alludes to the ordering and the building up of parts that takes place in the facades of buildings. Window configurations play a main them in her geometric paintings. These ordered forms “create a sense of strength and permanence.” Simonds received a BA from Smith College in 1972 and a MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1978.

Susanne Tierney’s work concerns the unearthing of mythologies. She seeks to surface individual and collective histories. Images arise from questions surrounding thoughts and language. Her works take the form of collages. Tierney received her BFA from Rhode Island College in 1996 and a MFA from the University of Connecticut in 1999.