Artists - Dunn and Brown Contemporary

PRESS RELEASE

Beverly Semmes
Pink Arms, Pairs and Bumps
January 11 through February 23, 2008

Dunn and Brown Contemporary is pleased to announce its debut exhibition with internationally recognized New York artist, Beverly Semmes. Responding to the exhibition space at Dunn and Brown Contemporary, Semmes has created an impressive grouping of hand-sculpted glass vessels set on pedestals, as well as her signature oversized dress installations. Pink Arms, Pairs and Bumps will open with a reception for the artist, Friday, January 11, 6:00 - 8:00PM and continue through February 23, 2008.

Pink Arms, Pairs and Bumps will feature a monumental installation, combining new and previous work. The largest of the grand scale dresses that will be included in the exhibition, Pink Arms, has been exhibited extensively around the world since it was first made for the Florence Biennale in 1995. Since then, it has shown at the Guggenheim in 1996, a group exhibition in Fukuoka Japan in 1998, and at the Summer of 1995 ICA Boston Group Show. The dreamy blue organza skirt cascades across the gallery floor into pools of undulating folds. In a transformation from body to landscape, the dress becomes a translucent waterfall flowing into a lake of organza. The elongated pink velvet sleeves of the dress are exagerated and non functional, yet beautiful and sensuous. Each dress that Semmes creates emanates her continuous themes of human and nature, absence versus presence, and beauty versus deformity.

The new body of work consists of five pairs of hot-sculpted crystal glass vessels. The works are mated and placed on handcrafted wooden tables. Very similar to the dress pieces, the glass vessels are meant to be deformed, yet strikingly beautiful. Their multiple twisted handles mirror the long folding arms of the dress installations. These visually powerful luminous vessles look like icles. When installed with dramatic lighting, the glass vessels appear rich like taffy candy, yet airy like jewels of spun light. While participating as a Visiting Artist at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington, Beverly Semmes made a short documentary showing the glass blowing process which creates these intricate vessels. This video can be viewed on YouTube, “Beverly Semmes Making Sculptural Glass Vessels.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD7Qj6YSbcA)

Beverly Semmes currently lives and works in New York. Semmes has been honored with numerous one-person exhibitions at institutions around the world, including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, The Whitney Museum of Art at Philip Morris, New York, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin and the Kemper Museum for Contemporary Art and Design, Kansas City. Her work can be found in many prestigious museum collections, such as the Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem, The Netherlands, Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Beverly Semmes will be present at the opening reception on Friday, January 11, 2008. Dunn and Brown Contemporary is open to the public on Tuesday through Saturday from 11:00 am until 5:00 pm and by appointment. Please contact Sarah Stork at the gallery or via email at sstork@dunnandbrown.com for additional information or to request visuals of the exhibition.

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