Date/Time
Date(s) - 06/04/2022
5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Location
Categories
Cost
Free
Details
Material Things presents ‘A Wedge of Darkness,’ an exhibition of paintings and drawings by artist Priya Vadhyar. This is the second exhibition held in the studio center’s new experimental gallery space, The Pallet Rack.
‘A Wedge of Darkness’ will be on view from June 4 through July 16, 2022. An opening reception, free and open to the public, will be held on Saturday, June 4, from 5 to 7 p.m. A closing program with the artist will be held on Saturday, July 9, from 5 to 7 p.m.
Priya Vadhyar’s work is an exploration of what Loren Eiseley calls one’s “interior geography,” the boundaries of the self, and one’s relationship to the sum of things. Using painting and water-soluble graphite to exercise fluidity, Vadhyar shifts between opposing states of forgetting and remembering, contracting and expanding, and knowing and not-knowing. The artist is driven by the awareness that results from this purposeful limbo: this “in-between of states” in which a quiet descends on the ego and the nameable parts of the self slip away. In such an unconfined state, the continuum between the “I” and all that lies outside the “I” becomes clear. The detachment from identities, roles, and relationships makes one less like a defined entity and more like an orb of energy or a “wedge of darkness”––a visceral phrase from Virginia Woolf’s ‘To The Lighthouse,’ which inspired Vadhyar’s most recent body of work.
In the exhibition, ‘A Wedge of Darkness,’ Vadhyar’s reflections on interiority, ontology, self-construction, and relative importance take intimate shape. Vadhyar’s work––presented at The Pallet Rack alongside books, journal entries, and collected objects from the artist’s studio––investigates how inner and outer worlds inform each other, and the “walls” that may or may not separate the two.
ABOUT PRIYA VADHYAR
Priya Vadhyar (she/her, b. 1980, India) is a visual artist currently based in Ellicott City, Maryland. Vadhyar spent most of her formative years in Mumbai. In 2010, she moved to Tucson, Arizona. There, Vadhyar studied advanced abstract painting with artist Josh Goldberg, who later became her mentor. In her current work, Vadhyar inquires into the boundaries of the self and the revelations that lie in juxtapositions––something and nothing, form and formlessness, edge and void, known and unknown, stillness and chaos. Vadhyar’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Outside of her studio, Vadhyar is a teaching artist specializing in drawing and printmaking workshops. For more information about the artist, visit priyavadhyar.com.
ABOUT MATERIAL THINGS AND THE PALLET RACK
Material Things is the creative workspace of Francisco Rosario and Katie Aldworth, plus many other friends who make the Material Things creative community possible. Francisco works primarily in wood and metal to create sculpture, and on occasion, utilitarian ware. Katie works in clay to create utilitarian ware, and on occasion, sculpture. Limited classes in clay, wood, and welding are also offered in the space. Material Things is located at 4531 Rhode Island Ave, North Brentwood, MD, 20722––a few minutes from Northeast DC. For more information, visit materialthingsstudio.com and @materialthingsstudio.
The Pallet Rack is a 24 square-foot alternative exhibition space within Material Things. ‘A Wedge of Darkness’ can be viewed on Tuesdays, 4–7 p.m. and Sundays 12–3 p.m.
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