Exhibition

Featured artists Meredith Brickell and Kristen Martincic have collaborated continuously since meeting as graduate students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, citing similarities in process—brainstorming, then executing in a refined and meticulous way that is evident in their work. Now located in North Carolina and Montana respectively, they continue their collaboration via telephone critiques and infrequent meetings, like a recent rendezvous in Chicago on the shore of Lake Michigan where they decided on the title of this exhibition, when i go swimming. The exhibition relates to the artists’ interests in the aesthetics of swimming—the way light interacts with water, the symmetry of strokes and the feeling of swimming— the meditative quality of water, and the sensations of floating. Visually, Brickell and Martincic’s color palettes are aligned, and there are many formal connections in their work.

Meredith Brickell, a Raleigh artist, works in clay, hand-building vessels. The vessels are often large, but are experienced intimately, as tiny details—fine lines, swatches of metallic gold, hidden drawings on a vessel’s underside—draw one into the entire landscape of the form. By combining, as she says, “irregularity and exactness, strength and delicacy, exposed and hidden spaces,” Brickell deftly creates sculpture that examines the public and private, and evokes both the vastness of a landscape, and the tiny objects that shapes one’s experience of place. Brickell holds a Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She was a Core student at Penland School of Crafts from 2000-2002, and received a Bachelor of Art + Design from North Carolina State University. Some past exhibitions of note include Colors of Shade, a solo show at Philadelphia Clay Studio.

Kristen Martincic, currently based in Helena, Montana, has created hand-constructed paper bathing suits. She has printed on the paper, using wood-block and monoprinting methods, and uses stitching as line. Through these constructions, Martincic seeks to reveal the very private: vulnerable moments and emotions. She uses the human form—and objects relating to the human form—to explore “issues of intimacy, emotion, and private space.” The result is sculptures and installations that are subtly beautiful, meticulously crafted, and powerful in their simplicity. Martincic received her MFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and her undergraduate degree from Bowling Green State University. Some exhibitions of note include To Make Haste Slowly at Turman Larison Contemporary in Helena, MT (2007) and Another Layer of Skin at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Nebraska City, NE