PRINTMAKING TODAY FEATURE BY CLAIRE CUCCIO

The Skins of Life

Ordinary plants have long captivated Jaclyn Mednicov, in their mutability across print’s transfer processes, writes Claire Cuccio.

Mednicov’s art of multiple transfers embedded in a single work or distinct works, created from continuous transfers across materials and time, presents her subject matter in innumerable ways we might not otherwise identify. In her nature series, she elicits a different appreciation of a botanical’s original beauty. While humans often tend flowers for their peak of beauty, pick them in their wilting state and overlook others as weeds, she preserves them in three-dimensional forms that expand on their own intrinsic beauty.

CERAMIC RESIDENCY PROGRAM at EKWC
Oisterwijk, Netherlands (summer 2023)

The medium of clay, with its impressionable surface, has recently allowed me to expand on my interest in the fragile temporality of life as manifested through the natural world. I will make a new body of work called Vestiges of Time this summer at EKWC. Working alongside ceramic experts and peers during my stay is not only the perfect environment to explore clay’s endless possibilities but an excellent space to build out a new body of work.

GROUP EXHIBITION

INVISIBLE ARCHITECTURE
Ian Miyamura, Hasani Sahlehe, Jaclyn Mednicov, Alessandra Norman, 
Salvador Dominguez, and Sonya Bogdanova

Curated by Marina Ross
Ralph Arnold Gallery 
March 17-April 15, 2023
Opening Reception: Friday, March 17th 5-7pm

INVISIBLE ARCHITECTURE is an exhibition of paintings and sculptures by six artists whose works evoke a meditative response through the interaction between form and fluidity. Within the geometric architecture of a painting, painters Ian Miyamura and Hasani Sahlehe search for ways to break down boundaries and suggest a dissolving state of perception. Similarly, Alessandra Norman airbrushes soft paint onto rigid CNC-routed panels, collapsing the distance between the exterior natural landscape and the interior architecture of windows and fences. Jaclyn Mednicov and Salvador Dominguez use mold making processes to re-present quotidian forms into new interpretations that reveal the atmospheric residue of the objects and suggest the passing of time. Sonya Bogdanova creates heavy and tender ceramic clouds, placed in domestic spaces to address the spiritual weight of working toward the American dream. The works act as symbols for the body by addressing the transient state of our perceptions, and make us aware of boundaries within ourselves. 

GROUP EXHIBITION

MILK AND EGGS
Joshua Astor, Steven Carrelli, Journie Cirdain, Richard Deustch, Josh Dihle, Andrew Falkowski Elisabeth Heying, Minami Kobayashi, Jim Lutes, Jaclyn Mednicov, Claire Moore, Matt Morris, Frank Piatek, Rebecca Shore

Curated by Andrew Fakowlski and co-organized by Journie Cirdain

COLOR CLUB 
March 17-April 24, 2023
Opening Reception: Friday, March 17th 5-8pm

Milk and Eggs, a group show curated by Andrew Falkowski, is a collection of artists who are in communion with, and deviate from, these histories. Each artist uses and pushes these materials propositionally, finding their individual perspective as they navigate between the rigid demands of this material and their own restless ingenuity. They lean into expressivity, idiosyncrasy, formal and conceptual rigor, as well as alternative painting approaches. And as each artist expounds on their own relationship to this medium, the resultant images and varying surfaces are expanding the cultural inheritance of this ancient material.  

ARTIST RESIDENCY PROGRAM at The Sea Foundation
Tilburg, Netherlands, 2021

“For many years Jaclyn Mednicov has been working with plants from her garden. Mednicov draws inspiration from the flora around her and her imagination is unleashed through everything that grows, blooms and decays from what nature offers. In addition, she relates to her inwardness and in doing so she let go of feelings and aims to depict whatever is going on inside. While painting the flow dictates how work develops. Experiencing nature, like art, appeals to our senses, in which shapes and colours play a major role. While the forms and colours in nature are predetermined by the species, Mednicov determines the form and colour of her work through her choice of materials: paint and canvas, ceramics, textiles and plaster. As well as by her emotions and intuition. Her working method and her works are therefore experimental, versatile and ambient.”

- The SEA FOUNDATION