Crosscurrents

September 13 – October 23, 2022

Opening Reception: Friday, September 30, 5-7 PM

Works from Artist Mentorship Program 2022 graduates Mary-Helen Horne, Sallie Ketcham and Diane Machado.

My art celebrates the rich and fragile diversity of natural Florida. The prints on view in Crosscurrents were made in 2021 – 2022, a time I’ve spent reflecting on the natural environment and my own impact upon it.

Artmaking enables me to see nature’s processes at work in an intimate, palpable way. I explore nature’s interconnectedness through a layered approach, combining multiple printmaking processes in each of my prints, including monotype, collagraph, pochoir, drypoint, etching and relief.

Lynn Peterfreund set me along this path as my mentor beginning in 2020. At the time, I was transitioning from corporate operations to full time artmaking. She set me up with advice on studio practice and layout, composition and design, and foundational process.

Lynn is an outstanding artist and shared generously her insights on what makes great art, as well as encouragement and like-minded friendship. Our meetings were stimulating and exploratory, and she provided comprehensive notes from each session. She assessed my developmental and technical opportunities and needs, while also prompting how to crystalize the focus of my efforts.

Throughout this essential and extraordinary experience, Lynn was always accessible and highly responsive to ad hoc inquiries, directing me when appropriate to other Zea Mays faculty, additional education and great art. Overall, this experience has propelled me into a serious and rewarding art practice.

Website: www.maryhelenhorne.com

Instagram: /mhhorne2020

Email: art.mh@maryhelenhorne.com

As, a child I spent time alone discovering the world around me. I grew up in Florida on a barrier island. I could easily walk from the inland water way to the beach. On hot days, I would head for the ocean. Swimming amongst the reef, beach combing for whatever detritus was washed ashore, and just sitting and watching the surface of the water being transformed by the wind and tide. I still love watching the sun play across the surface, sparkling like diamonds. When the weather was inclement, I headed for the empty lots that were filled with banyan trees with their magnificent sculptural roots. Each crevice concealed a treasure. I was fascinated
by the complex root system of a strangler fig that would climb down from the top of the tree, spreading tentacles to the earth. Possums, raccoon, and hundreds of insects lived in the self contained eco system. Like a terrestrial reef. I am now exploring the entangled relationship of woodlands and mycelium. Each work captures abstract patterns created by the intricate structures of fungus and lichen and layered with images of trees. My art expresses my love of nature, in all its beauty, poetry, and mystery.

I make drawings and prints to narrate my experiences as a first-generation American born in the United States, New World—and into an immigrant family and community at large, Old World.

I sit in this complex intersection of marginalized identities in an Old World, or hard life, and a terrifying, desperate New World, or harsh life—and investigate my sense of self within a paradigm of trauma, memory, research, and socio-economic critique of neoliberalism.

I selected works in this exhibit that feature what started as an experiment in at-home printing techniques—without access to a press during the COVID-19 lockdowns —and drawing from close observation of two volcanic rocks picked up from a remote beach near my family’s home located in the Azores, Portugal. I continued drawing and developed an evolving practice of trace monotypes and drypoint prints that explore overlapping themes around personal experience, family history, and cultural heritage.

As a result, these prints and drawings are expressive visual narratives that suggest a fluidity between representation and abstraction as objects, figures, and landscapes that engage in a repetition of mark-making—finding an important detail that can be repeated in an attempt to heal from the confines of the paper.

di.mach.design@gmail.com

dianemachado.squarespace.com