Proximity & Touch

April 17 - May 29, 2010
Exhibition Reception: Saturday, April 17 from 2-4 pm

Alberta Craft Council – Discovery Gallery – 10186 106 Street, Edmonton AB

Glass is a curious material.  It is durable, fragile, ubiquitous, rare, thousands of years old and new to the studio craft movement.   The use of glass in this exhibition is done with intent.  The material is recognized and understood by the viewer in a way that is immediate and visceral.  Everyone understands what drinking out of glass feels like, we all look through glass everyday and we have all cleaned windows.  We understand it through touch, taste, sound and sight.

 Proximity and Touch is an exhibition that is an investigation into the anticipation of touch; to be touched and to touch.  Specifically it asks the question at what point does proximity imply a relationship between two things and at what point does that association mean an inevitability of touch.   The forms found in the exhibition are founded in aspects of the human body, the history of medieval European liturgical sculpture and American Minimalist sculpture.  The two aforementioned art traditions are related by interest in a charged negative space.

In 1999 Natali Rodrigues received her Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in Glass from the Alberta College of Art + Design, she then went on to receive her Masters from Canberra School of Art in Australia.    Natali has participated in many national and international exhibitions; she has also taught at the ACAD since 2004 and recently has been appointed the Interim Head of the Glass Department at the College in Calgary.

The Geese Came Back

April 17 - May 29, 2010

Exhibition Reception: Saturday, April 17 from 2-4 pm

Alberta Craft Council – Discovery Gallery – 10186 106 Street, Edmonton AB

Confident, considered, elegant forms with engaging relationships develop through being exhibited as a collective voice.  It is this conversation between the forms that inspires Opal, Alberta, ceramic artist, Brenda Danbrook.  Repetition unifies the forms and subtle variations highlight individual qualities. It is often through the smallest change that engagement occurs; the undulation of a rim, the fineness of edges and the volume suggested by a change of profile.  A coherent and balanced interplay with the families of vessels is the goal of these groupings. 

Her recent work has been soda glazed which offers the unpredictability and exhilaration of continual discovery.  Aided by the fire, the composition of the clay body determines glaze surface, colour and responsiveness.  Shades of grey though white with saturated rich honey brown creates tonal and colour harmonies. 

As part of her undergraduate studies in fine art she has studied at Red Deer College, Australian National University and has participated in a workshop in Jingdezhen, China. This exhibition has been inspired by her time at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia in 2009.