Duo Exhibition: Passages
Nina Klein & Brie Noel Taylor
Dates: May 7 - 28, 2022
Reception: Saturday, May 7 | 4-7 PM
Glass Rice is proud to present Passages, a duo exhibition of new paintings by Nina Klein and Brie Noel Taylor. Both artists’ work reflect the transcendental, spiritual, and transformative experiences that can come from the act of creating artwork in a style and practice unique to their own. Passages is an energetic reminder that powerful human reactions can come from carefully constructed compositions rooted in the innate potential of color, symbols and shapes combined.
With an intent focus on ‘the light’, Taylor carefully selected a series of cool and warm shades of calming yellows, blues and pinks to reflect feelings of reverence and transformation. Stone-like shapes orbit an imaginary nucleus, pulsating from the center of the canvas, and giving-life to the organic forms. In other paintings, shapes that mimic the flow of water move cyclically or travel from one end of the paper to the other. Color and composition become the vehicle in her work as she leads the viewer on a fluid visual journey based purely on human reaction to forms found throughout our natural world; echoing back to our relationship to the environment. Through this guidance, Taylor ushers her audience on a spiritual experience of light and dark that can be felt not only through emotion, but in their physical bodies as well.
Having grown up in a religious home, semiotics play an integral role in Klein’s process and practice. Signs, symbols and iconography found in our communities are the foundation of the visual language that shepherd the narratives in her work around gender, identity, spirituality and societal expectations. In this show, the most common symbol found throughout her work is the butterfly. Often viewed as metaphors for spiritual rebirth and transformation, and as symbols of beauty and hope, Klein uses these creatures to express just that. As the butterflies navigate deep tunnels of midnight blue, their journey in, through, and out reflect a moment of transient passage; mirroring the mental state of the artist while creating these works during a time of global turmoil. In leaning on this process as a form of temporal respite, Klein hopes that those feelings might also lend a moment relief for her viewers.
In Passages, Klein and Taylor together have created an environment that harken to spaces of deep spirituality and transformation; such as a church, temple, or an Ashram. In keeping these places of reverence in mind, both artists’ have used their work to transform the exhibition space to a spatial offering of worship for whatever it is any individual would like to seek an escape from.
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The opening reception will run from 4 - 7 pm on May 7th and is open to the general public for walk-ins. Private appointments can be made on our website to view the exhibition after the opening reception through May 28th. Masks are required inside the gallery if you are not enjoying a beverage. Thank you for your cooperation in keeping us all safe and healthy!