Filtered Forms | Special Exhibit

This exhibit, Filtered Forms, was curated by Columbia College intern Brianna Bogucki as the culminating project of her time at Sager Braudis Gallery. This show, on display at the Uprise Bakery, features work by Greta Myers, Rebecca Crowell, and Emily Burns. Each artist and piece was selected with a particular attention to subject matter, inspiration, and color palette to create a visually unified yet independently effective exhibition that examines an artist’s careful decision of how to appropriate and abstract their inspiration and subject matter in order to create work that speaks not only to them but also to the viewer.

Greta Myers, who received her MFA from the University of Missouri in 2014, describes her paintings as compulsive and necessary acts. Working in a mixture of oil, acrylic, and graphite, Myers displays a rare ability to surrender all recognizable forms and still maintain control over the mood her work stimulates. In this body of work, Myers was inspired to take filtered photos from social media and abstract them. Her quick application of the paint yields an impression of how the inspirational image struck her, forcing Myers to become a filter. The soft color palette, irregular contours, and rigid strokes of graphite act as communicators between artist and viewer, displaying an embodiment of the passions conjured by a found image via a highly abstracted landscape.

Rebecca Crowell, with a MFA in painting from Arizona State University (1985), is an avid traveler who has taught several workshops in places as far as Ireland, Spain, and Sweden. When she is not migrant, she is constantly creating in her Wisconsin studio. Her masterful application of cold wax and oil work fluently with the subject matter of landscapes familiar to Crowell to allow a peek into the artist’s mind. The bold palette and method of adding and scraping away layers create depth and energy in her works, as well as a reflection of the powerful influence that these locations have on Crowell.

Emily Burns received her MFA from the Pennsylvania State University, and is the acting designer and editor of Maake Magazine a contemporary art magazine. With these works, Burns is investigating the history and development of society’s idealized female and what effect this concept has on the psyches of women. Her gentle graphite drawings utilize negative space and a centralized composition to induce a tranquil sentiment in the viewer. These mythical pin-up women contrasted with trophy animal heads can only exist on paper or in the imagination, giving the work another layer of intimacy between Burns and the viewers.

Filtered Forms examines the dichotomy between the inspiration that strikes an artist and what they choose to create following that stimulus. The artist’s power to select the imagery that will resonate with viewers is demonstrated in each of these bodies of work. Each artist is experimenting with the idea of using their hands as a filter, taking conversant spaces or figures and using their distinct media to mold them into work with room for interpretation and an individual emotional connection from with each viewer.

This exhibit will be up at Uprise Bakery at 10 Hitt Street in Downtown Columbia from November 12th through December 10th. All work displayed is available for purchase through the Sager Braudis Gallery.