Assembled by The Gray Gallery and Now on View in the MSV,
Explore Features Artwork by Artists Sarah Carman and Marty Ittner
Winchester, VA 07/31/15…New contemporary works by artists Sarah Carman and Marty Ittner are now on view in Explore, a new Art in the Halls display in the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley (MSV).
On view in Lewis Hall and assembled by Winchester’s The Gray Gallery, Explore includes five cyanotype prints and a mixed-media triptych, all created specifically for display in the MSV and inspired by works on view in the MSV anniversary exhibition, Collect, Preserve, Interpret: Ten Years at the MSV. Presented through October 18, Explore is available for viewing free of charge; MSV admission is not required. [See Art in the Halls page for more objects in this display.]
The Art in the Halls display is half of a two-part presentation coordinated by The Gray Gallery Curatorial Director Jaimianne Amicucci and featuring the works of artists Carman and Ittner. For their MSV display, the artists researched the MSV’s collection to create new works. The complementary presentation in The Gray Gallery, Explore: Re-imagining the Past, features the artists’ broader bodies of work. Explore: Re-imagining the Past will be on view in The Gray Gallery from August 7 through August 29.
According to MSV Director of Exhibitions Corwyn Garman, Explore is the first Art in the Halls display to feature works inspired by objects in the MSV Collection and created to complement an exhibition on view in the MSV. He notes that Explore provides visitors with contemporary artists’ interpretations of portraits and a printing press on view in the MSV exhibition.
Jaimianne Amicucci says that Sarah Carman and Marty Ittner were selected for this project because of their interest in history and use of nostalgic themes in their work.
An artist and educator from upstate New York, Sarah Carman is interested in and inspired by small relics and the lost memories of the people who made and used them. She used the cyanotype process, a photographic printing process also known as the blueprint process, to create her Art in the Halls works. Each of her portrait silhouettes is layered with images of objects and textures from the MSV galleries. Two of the prints that she created for Explore were inspired by the MSV’s portraits of William Wood Glass and Nan Glass by artist Edward Caledon Bruce (1825–1900). Quilt, a female silhouette, is layered with graphic patterns from a nineteenth-century quilt in the MSV collection. Her work, John Bell, references famous Valley potter John Bell (1800–1888) and includes an inscription from a ceramic sugar bowl featured in Collect, Preserve, Interpret.
Marty Ittner, a Washington, DC, artist and graphic designer, was inspired by the nineteenth-century Henkel printing press on view in Collect, Preserve, Interpret. Her Art in the Halls triptych, Drei Drucker/Three Printers, is a mixed-media work, each panel of which includes a silhouetted portion of the Henkel press and a portrait of an influential printer from history. Images of famous printers Benjamin Franklin and Johannes Gutenberg are included as is an image of Ireneus Henkel (1809–1879), who published books in New Market, Virginia, and once worked with the press now on view in the MSV. The original portrait of Henkel featured in the triptych is also in the MSV Collection.
The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley is located at 901 Amherst Street in Winchester, Virginia. The MSV complex—which includes galleries, the Glen Burnie House, and six acres of gardens—is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Additional information is available at www.theMSV.org or by calling 540-662-1473, ext. 235. –END–
About Collect, Preserve, Interpret: Ten Years at the MSV:
Organized by the MSV in celebration of its tenth anniversary, Collect, Preserve, Interpret: Ten Years at the MSV showcases some of the most important objects acquired by the MSV during its first decade. On view in the Shenandoah Valley Gallery through May 1, 2016, the exhibition features more than 50 objects including furniture, ceramics, paintings, quilts, metals, folk art, and a variety of items of historic interest.
About The Gray Gallery
Located at 43 South Cameron Street in Old Town Winchester, The Gray Gallery is dedicated to showcasing fine art and contemporary craft. The Gray Gallery is open from noon to 6 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and will host a special First Friday reception and opening for Explore: Re-imagining the Past from 6 to 8 p.m. on August 7. See www.the-gray-gallery.com for details.