Artworks Gallery Presents:
Mary Blackwell Chapman: Time in the Pandemic
Mona Wu: Leaf Dreaming
Exhibition dates: August 1 – August 28, 2021
Gallery Hop: Friday, August 6, 7-10 pm
Meet the Artists Reception: Sunday, August 8, 2-4 pm
Mary Blackwell-Chapman, “Cave Art”
Mary Blackwell Chapman | Time in the Pandemic
Mary Blackwell-Chapman’s current show, Time in the Pandemic reflects her response to the worldwide COVID pandemic of the past year and a half in ceramic and fiber. Some artists found increased energy during this time, but some, like Blackwell-Chapman, felt an emptiness and lack of direction. She realized renewed interest and focus in family history, natural beauty, and quiet work with new forms of expression in clay and with a material new to her: fiber.
Her works in the “Homeplace” series reference personal family history and the broader, varied stories of how all of our families came to live in this country and have found, or not found, a home. Fiber is a medium particularly connected to the home, family, community, and history.
Her ceramic work shows an interest in surface treatment and glaze/slip finish that is also new to her. These changes in style and technique reflect her reaction to the profoundly altered state of the world. The world has felt very new and different, and she responded by picking up new tools, new images, and new concerns.
Mary Blackwell-Chapman is a sculptural artist from Forsyth County, North Carolina. She earned a BA in English Literature from Goucher College, and an MA in Motion Picture from Northwestern University in Chicago. She has studied sculpture, both ceramics and book arts, at Penland, UNC-G, Arrowmont, Shakerag, the Calligraphy Centre, and the Sawtooth Center. Her works are in numerous collections. She has been a member of the artists’ collective, Artworks Gallery, since 1992.
Mary Blackwell-Chapman, “Leaf Candelabra”
Mona Wu | Leaf Dreaming
Mona Wu’s new show, Leaf Dreaming, consists principally of images printed on fabric, and then embellished with hand stitching on unused cloth napkins. Botanical imagery is the theme in most of the work, although some were produced with simple woodcut, monoprinted, then hand-sewn into small wall hangings.
In addition to the wall hangings, there are twelve cocktail napkins with gel prints of single leaf outlines and overlaying leaf veins and ferns within; eight dinner napkins with more complex compositional components and various top stitches.
This series is a vast departure from Wu’s previous work of prints on paper. Instead of paper, the artist works with fabric and thread. It is a new art form and a fresh look at familiar objects expressed in new materials, sewn entirely by hand.
A native of China, Mona Wu immigrated to the US in 1970. She studied Chinese painting and calligraphy in Hong Kong then received her BA in Art History from Salem College in 1996. She also studied Printmaking at WFU from 1997-2014.
In 2003 Wu was selected as Sawtooth School of Visual Art Winston-Salem Artist of the year. She teaches Printmaking and Collage at Sawtooth. Wu is currently a member of Artworks Gallery, an artist co-op art gallery in downtown Winston-Salem.
Gallery Hours: Wednesday – Saturday 11-5; Sunday 1-4
Open for Gallery Hop: Friday, August 6, 7-10 pm
Meet the Artists Reception: Sunday, August 8, 2-4 pm
Exhibition dates: August 1 – August 28, 2021
For information about this press release, contact pr@artworks-gallery.org