February 14 - March 8, 2002 | Emerging Artists

The Chazan Gallery @ Wheeler will be presenting Emerging Artists, featuring installations by Michelle Benoit and Laura Kramer and textiles by Carol LeBaron from February 14 to March 8, 2002. There will be an opening reception for the artists on Thursday, February 14, from 5 - 7 p.m. The public is invited.

Michelle Benoit builds site specific installations that concentrate on the arrangement and presentation of "seemingly insignificant" objects of daily life. Often using such delicate materials as paper, tape and transparencies, Benoit creates ephemeral pieces that examine "the idea of collection and the preservation of impermanent materials." Benoit recieved her MFA from the University of Iowa and her BFA from Rhode Island College.

With a background in glass, Laura Kramer incorporates finely crafted glass beads and strands into her wall installations, which explore the extremes of adornment and ornamentation. Using "obsessive patterning and excessiveness," Kramer weaves together various decorative elements until "ornament devours the structure and consumes itself." Kramer recieved her MFA from Ohio State University and her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.

In her work with textiles, Carol LeBaron uses color, material, and pattern to "evoke reflections of known spaces." Her forms, which reference landscape and nature, repeat themselves to form an elegant layering of surfaces that both incorporate and transcend the wool, cashmere, or cotton on which they were made. LeBaron recieved her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and now teaches at East Tennessee State University.