'Caught in the act' in Chicago
The West Wall Gallery welcomes you on Thursday, December 7 from 5:30 to 9:30 P.M to celebrate the final month of Corinna Button’s solo exhibition “Caught in The Act” at 1350 West Erie in Chicago. This exhibition highlights the adventurous ideas Button now explores. Influenced by German Expressionism, Corinna Button seamlessly incorporates printmaking techniques into her paintings and ceramic sculptures. Her process involves “dressing up” and “undressing,” excavating, and stripping back layers to expose or to conceal an identity. Her work is motivated by her desire to “bring something to light.”
This will be a festive evening with wonderful art, food, music, friends, old and new.
This will be a festive evening with wonderful art, food, music, friends, old and new.
For more information go to the link below.
Interview coinciding with the last few days of 'Interfaces' show at HPAC
INTERVIEW WITH THE EXHIBITING ARTIST: CORINNA BUTTON
INTERFACES
Caught in a fast Lane, 2017, Carborundum Collagraph and monotype on canvas, 10 x 25 ins (25.40 x 63.50 cms)
Interfaces marks Corinna Button’s return to Hyde Park Art Center following her completion of the Center Program in 2013 with a new body of work highlighting the relationship between printmaking and ceramic processes, this exhibition will showcase new work in both clay and print that combine the techniques of each medium to represent the multifaceted condition being a woman. Before the exhibition closes at the end of the month, we caught up with Button to ask her a few questions about her work and practice.
What were some of the challenges you faced trying to marry all of your practice processes together as a printmaker, ceramicist and painter?
When I reflect back, it was much less a challenge but rather an opportunity, an accident that unlocked a whole new process for me in bringing together my paintings and prints.
Throughout my career in London, through lack of space, my printing studio was in a completely different building to my painting studio. When I moved to Chicago I enjoyed for the first time, a studio large enough to hold both my printing press and tools as well as all my painting materials. Having such a large studio space, allowed me develop and concentrate on my painting and printmaking at the same time. Before long I found myself cross-fertilizing between the two mediums for example using printmaking tools to apply paint to my paintings.
By accident I also discovered a new technique of applying and layering printed images onto canvas and sanding back to create an amazing new surface to apply paint – it gives such depth. When I discovered my passion for ceramics I applied the same principles, using tools and materials from my painting and prints to create the many layers and patterning in my sculptures.
In your exhibition review in Newcity, they noted how "It’s hard not to root for all seventy-one of the young women presented in these pieces. You want them to stay true to themselves and never feel crushed by the world around them. " Your practice is so focused on the multidimensionality of being a woman. How much of that is your own personal experience and how much do you draw on from figures in history or elsewhere in your life?
Of course the female face is the one I am most familiar with, not just because I am woman but being one of four sisters, I grew up surrounded by females. This triggered my desire to explore the complex relationships between young women and this was further embellished through seeing and hearing my daughters own experiences.
My subjects and the realms they inhabit are all entirely conjured from my mind’s eye. I may refer to a photograph, an object or use my own reflection for additional information such as working out an angle for a head or proportions etc. None of my works are of anyone in particular. I compose figures either in groupings or as a single figure or just a face. My aim is not to create exact likenesses, but rather to create prototypical or archetypal figures whose personality or identity is both partly exposed and partly hidden beneath the surface. It is through my printed, painted or sculpted figures that I wish to project recognizable aspects of human experience.
Sometimes words as well as images can have great resonance and relevance. Poetry has been instrumental in the development of my new body of work.
“ Our masks, always in peril of smearing or cracking, in need of continuous check in the mirror or silverware, keep us in thrall to ourselves, concerned with our surfaces.” Carolyn Kizer (from Pro- Femina, Knock upon Silence).
“ Our masks, always in peril of smearing or cracking, in need of continuous check in the mirror or silverware, keep us in thrall to ourselves, concerned with our surfaces.” Carolyn Kizer (from Pro- Femina, Knock upon Silence).
What is it in particular that has made German Expressionism such an influence for you?
I was always only interested in drawing the figure and I gradually developed a so-called narrative ‘expressionist’ style through the process of printmaking. From the beginning I was attracted to dark strong black lines, dramatic light, composition and colour. Prior to even being fully aware of the German Expressionist Printmaking group, my body of work was often described by gallery owners, enthusiasts and art educators etc. as; ‘Expressionist’ and ‘Germanic’ .
I was therefore encouraged to see an exhibition held at the British Museum called ‘The print in Germany’. I was blown away by that show and that was a turning point for me – it felt like I had stepped into my family home. For many years after, I devoted myself to printmaking and painting took the ‘back seat’.
I was therefore encouraged to see an exhibition held at the British Museum called ‘The print in Germany’. I was blown away by that show and that was a turning point for me – it felt like I had stepped into my family home. For many years after, I devoted myself to printmaking and painting took the ‘back seat’.
I just love the rawness, bold mark making and forthright honesty and gesture in the work – it is powerful and the effect it has on me is visceral.
"The Individual in Multiplicity. The work of Corinna Button" by Sergio Gomez
The Individual in Multiplicity. The Work of Corinna Button
by Sergio Gomez
To see and to understand are two very different things. One sees but one does not always understand what he sees. This is more evident in today’s rapid changing world with all its complexities of social interaction both on and off the screen. At one point in our lives, there was only one screen yet we did not have immediate interaction with it. That was our television set some 30 years ago. Almost every home had at least one and most of what we saw back then were stories being told one at a time. Although there may have been a mystery to a given story, it was easier to understand what we were seeing.
Fast-forward 30 years. Today we have many stories being told almost instantly and in multiple screens of all sizes. Not only stories are being told, but also fractions and semi-fractions of a story. Today’s stories are incomplete, open-ended and constantly evolving. In fact, we have the ability to interact instantly and even become a part of the story.
Has this new reality change the way we see and understand the world? One could take a close look at the work of artist Corinna Button whose career in recent years has been focused on observing human behavior in terms of how we deal with our persona both actual and implied. An educated painter, sculptor and print maker, Button delivers with mastery of medium, a visual narrative of our shared social experience.
A single work by Corinna Button may be composed of one figure with multiple faces. Not in a grotesque or monstrous manner but rather in a beautiful and playful way, these single characters evoke an idea of multiple personalities within a person. The figures depicted on paper, canvas or as standing sculptures typically portray a female figure in glamorous facial expressions. The ceramic standing figures are elongated and graciously dressed with elaborated surfaces reminiscence of a fashion model or celebrity.
Are Button’s transient figures characters of the artist’s imagination or are they an attempt to understand the world? A world which increasingly becomes harder and harder to understand even with all the accumulated knowledge available at our fingertips. To decode Button’s work, one needs to observe life in the fast lane or in the never-ending race for more. People search for more social media friends, more followers, more interactions, more gadgets, more apps and more of everything else except for more quietness of mind.
“I use dress shapes and human gestures inspired by images I’ve encountered in fashion media as my starting point – I choose a specific texture, pattern or shape, that evokes a certain mood. I wrap them up with layers of shaped, embossed clay, then burrow into and carve away areas to bring in some light and to allow the viewer a glimpse into the interior. Sometimes these structures grow beyond the costumed figure and become tower-like vessels, monuments or relics. They are manifestations of a number of different ideas about identity and stereotype.” Explains Button.
If Button’s vision is the result of an exercise to understand the world, we can discover in her work a sense of speed and motion as the dominant characteristics. Perhaps, similar to that of the futurist art movement of the early 20th century which emphasized speed, motion, technology and rapid change in society. However, Button’s work is focused on the personality(ies) of the individual which has become the main theme of our daily integration with the social media world.
Button’s multi-face personalities pose and embrace the moment as if they are waiting for a “selfie” in every direction. They are not taken by surprised. Instead, they graciously move and take a stand. Such is the new reality and banality of the social media revolution that perhaps, to look at Button’s work is to look at ourselves in the mirror. And by doing so, we realize that although we are able to see more of the world at once, we are actually understanding less of it.
Sergio Gomez
Curator/Director of Exhbitions
Zhou B Art Center
Zhou B Art Center
Sergio Gomez is a visual artist, curator/Director of Exhibitions for the Zhou B Art Center in Chicago, owner of 33 contemporary Gallery, founder of Art NXT Level Projects, educator and entrepreneur.
"Rhyming Couplet" in California
"Shakespeare: A Celebration"
Cal Lutheran University, California.
Three of my works including 'Rhyming Couplet' (below) are being featured in "Shakespeare; A Celebration" exhibition at the Cal Lutheran University in California until 28th September 2017 in the Kwong Fang Gallery of Art and Culture. (For more info - click the link below.)
Two additional works of mine (See below) are also included in this exhibition
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| "Caprice" Collagraph 33" x 24" "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind" Shakespeare A Midsummer's Night's Dream Act: 1 Scene1 |
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| "Fairy Tales" Etching 16" x 19" "Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to dream again" Shakespeare The Tempest Act III Scene II |
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