October Art at the Kent Library Exhibit...

The Friends of Kent Library are pleased to announce details on this month's exhibit:

mixed medium paintings [with emphasis on segmented canvases], by claudine mussuto
October 1, 2013 through October 31st, 2013

Artist's statement:
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There are several visual ideas that I have been investigating for an extended period of time, primarily through processes of expansive repetition and the creation of variations on themes.  These visual ideas include:

• the possibilities of the square, in general, the two-inch square, in particular
• the various and varied forms of segmented canvases
• visual narrative and the use of text and an element integral to visual experience
• visual environments that have printmaking-like qualities and characteristics

In 2006/2007, for about a year and during a time in which I lived in a rural area of western Massachusetts, I met monthly with three other women artists.  During our meetings, we sometimes discussed art, sometimes created work together, and sometimes gave ourselves art assignments.  One such assignment was to create thirty pieces (or one piece per day over the course of one month) using a square that measured six-inches or less.

For that project, I chose to work with the two-inch square.  I also elected to create finished pieces, rather than sketches.  A series entitled thirty time two-by-two evolved from these two ideas.  One piece was a work on paper, the art of fly fishing, which was my first exploration of fly fishing lures.  The other paintings in the group, eventually comprised of thirty pieces, were insects, each painted on five two-inch square sections of board.  I connected the sections of board with small pieces of paper as a means to echo the forms of the creatures that I was painting.  This commenced a fuller investigation of segmentation, which is what I see when I observe the cosmos: minute insects with gorgeously constructed bodies, beautifully conceived flowers and trees with intricate individual parts, the solar system with planets that have moons and rings, each unity and the entirety a reflection of something greater than the sum of its parts.

Much of the universe is segmented.  I explore and play with this observation and fact within the constraints of the two-dimensional surfaces of board, cardboard, paper and wood that I used as canvases.  I find diptychs and triptychs compelling, so explore them in a range of forms.  The methods of connecting segments of board with threat, and joining pieces of paper by creating a ridge, interest me a great deal.  I use them regularly, in a variety of ways.  I think the Kent Library gallery wall is a beautiful space, but wanted to press beyond the boundaries that the eight metal cables and sixteen hooks create.  So, I designed environments on four pieces of wood, and a new form of segmentation, on which to display some of the very small canvases that I paint.

I find that encoded ideas, impulses, and impressions about soul evolution are available everywhere around us.  Through daily practices of meditation work in the studio, contemplative walks, and occult studies, I endeavor to receive some of this information and translate it into visual form.  I see a relationship between my art and such ancient sacred texts as Egyptian papyri and Mayan codices.
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We hope to see you there!!