2024 EXHIBITIONS | John & Robyn Horn Gallery and FOCUS Gallery
FOCUS GALLERY
being here. seeing things. | Granite Calimpong and Katherine Toler
March 12 – April 13, 2024
To be present, aware and curious. To discover through process and direct engagement.
This exhibition features work by Granite Calimpong and Katherine Toler; two artists whose work touches on ideas of human perception and the emotional impact of color and material.
Granite Calimpong is a multi-media sculptor working primarily in ceramics and glass. His recent amorphous glass pieces are heavily invested in material exploration, contrasting gritty, textural surfaces with clean, pristine optical components.
Katherine Toler is a nonrepresentational painter. Her softly colored images are subtle and inexplicable, suggesting bodily sensations and the moments just before perception.
JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY
Between Dreams and Reality | Bespoke Footwear
March 26 – May 25, 2024
Curated by award-winning shoemaker, artist, and educator Amara Hark Weber, this exhibition will feature thirteen remarkable shoe and boot makers working at the nexus of historical construction practices and sophisticated design sensibilities.
The exhibition is a rare opportunity to both learn about bespoke footwear and celebrate a small world of incredibly skilled craftspeople who work outside the limelight of the contemporary craft focus.
“Shoe and boot makers work between dreams and reality. The making itself is intensely physical, but these craftsmen are fully aware that the shoes and boots they make occupy a unique position in their clients’ dreamscapes. These makers know that their work is far more than just to shoe their clients’ feet. Contemporary shoemakers satisfy something in us – something that cannot quite be named – by giving us something to walk on and in and through, something that elevates us to become the individuals we imagine ourselves to be. Shoes and boots help us to embody the people we want to become through a masterful sleight of hand, the creation of a feeling.”
Amara Hark Weber, Voices of Contemporary Shoemakers, American Craft Inquiry: Volume 1, Issue 2
Images: Wes Shugart boots (Music City Leather) and Amara Hark Weber in her studio
FOCUS GALLERY
Relic Feast | Rachel Kedinger and Michelle Kwiecien
April 30 – June 8, 2024
Relic Feast presents two Philadelphia-based artists, Rachel Kedinger and Michelle Kwiecien, collaborating on a unique and limited edition collection of home goods. The exhibition will feature an arrangement of table settings and decor, as well as individual and collaborative work for the wall.
Rachel Kedinger makes objects out of metal with a focus on utilitarian use. She strives to combine materials that evoke toughness and fragility, while creating everyday objects that anyone can use.
Michelle Kwiecien is an interdisciplinary artist. Her background in sculpture and printmaking coupled with years of work as a metal fabricator has resulted in a melding of material poetry, imagery, and functional object making.
JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY
THE WEIGHT OF WONDER
Materiality and the Poetics of Craft
June 11 – August 31, 2024
An exhibition exploring craft as a verb while equally rooted in the intangible outcomes. A dichotomy lies in what the perception of craft (noun) was, is, and could be – and how that has been redirected by artists for craft to also hold equal value as a tool for expressing larger concepts and ideas.
The work is not decorative. Neither is the work is overtly narrative, in that there is no specific story being told to the viewer. The Weight of Wonder is about the duality and complexities of communicating ideas through objects. Often, a good outcome of an exhibition is to raise questions that linger afterward.
FOCUS GALLERY
Where Water Meets Land | Katie Hudnall, Amy Putansu, and Sarah Vaughn
June 25 – August 3, 2024
Woodworker Katie Hudnall grew up along the Potomac River and spent childhood summers on the South Carolina coast. Her fanciful, sometimes functional, sometimes impractical, painted wooden objects are inspired by furniture, illustration, tools, toys, and all things nautical. Katie prefers using recycled and found wood whenever possible as it sparks new discoveries and encourages an openness to change and adaptation.
Textile artist Amy Putansu spent her childhood growing up on the Atlantic Ocean along the rugged coast of Maine. Her hand woven “paintings” use a rare weaving technique called ondulé which allows her to manipulate threads into wave-like patterns that suggest the fluidity and movement of water. These contemplative works keep Amy connected to her heritage and homeland while serving as personal meditations on the impermanence of all things.
Glass artist Sarah Vaughn has always been drawn to rivers, lakes, and anywhere she could become lost in a sea of smooth stones. She creates recollections of rocks, small moments that are not meant to last, in materials that are permanent yet fragile. Her perfectly composed and stacked groupings of glass and porcelain rocks serve as a metaphor for personal experiences and the precarious nature of life.
FOCUS GALLERY
WEAR | Contemporary Jewelry: Wonderment, Seduction, and Artifice
August 20 – October 5, 2024
The Penland FOCUS Gallery presents WEAR, our annual exhibition exploring current interpretations and material usage in the field of contemporary jewelry. Wonderment, Seduction, and Artifice will feature jewelry that is futuristic and fantastical, slick, shimmery, and full of opulent trickery. The exhibition includes both emerging and established makers from throughout the US.
Participating artists: Adam Grinovich, Arthur Hash, Morgan Hill, Everett Hoffman, Jessica Jane Julius, Michal Lando, Joanna Manousis, Bryan Parnham, Annika Pettersson, SaraBeth Post, Rachel Rader, Leslie Shershow, Mallory Weston, Laura Wood
JOHN & ROBYN HORN GALLERY
EL PUENTE
September 24 – December 7, 2024
A metaphorical bridge, El Puente, exists between Puerto Rico and the US, which share a complex and often misunderstood political and cultural relationship. How do we express El Puente through the lens of Puerto Rican artists?
This exhibition centers on legacy and culture, focusing on multi-generational artists in dialogue with the US through their education, residencies, and career opportunities. Co-curator Cristina Córdova characterizes this phenomenon as a continuous loop of communal encounters and mutual influence, followed by a momentary respite in which the encounters are assimilated and transformed within the artistic community. This pattern has taken place over many years and generations, moving back and forth between two territories inextricably connected yet distinctly separate, sometimes with intention and at times unconsciously. What are the influences of this bridge on the insular art community in Puerto Rico and how do the experiences evolve in the vacuum of an underresourced arts community?
Through the lens of Puerto Rican artists who have cultivated long- and short-term connections with the US throughout their formative and professional trajectories, El Puente offers insights into how these connections shape and inform the artistic practices, perspectives, and creative trajectories of Puerto Rican artists and consequently feed into the broader landscape of contemporary American craft in an evolving and continuous dynamic.
Participating artists: Cristina Córdova, Ada del Pilar Ortiz, Luis Gabriel Sanabria, and Jaime Suárez
FOCUS GALLERY
Of Hand and Earth | Hitomi and Takuro Shibata
October 22 – December 7, 2024
Of Hand and Earth features work by ceramicists Hitomi and Takuro Shibata. Originally from Japan, Hitomi and Takuro relocated to Seagrove, North Carolina in 2005. Their focus is to make simple and functional wood fired pottery and sculpture using locally sourced wild clays from North Carolina.
Hitomi and Takuro rely primarily on their hands, simple tools, locally harvested clays, and wood firing methods which are renewable and sustainable in the North Carolina region. They choose hand processes and natural or non-toxic materials as much as possible. Firings take place in their hand-built wood kilns after many days of cutting and splitting firewood. Glazes are made from washed wood ash gathered from wood kilns and wood stoves. Rain water is collected for use in the studio, and pots dry in the sun. As a result of this intentional work, the Shibata’s pottery and sculpture captures a natural, sustainable energy where process and form are one.