Minutes, Hours, Moments: Time in Between
On view: November 9 - December 1st, 2023
Press Release
Mary Tooley Parker
harnesses a unique process in creating her tactile tapestries. Parker spins yarn and cuts her own hand dyed wool into strips, pulling them both through a wooden “hook” device (composed of a linen foundation with a wooden handle) enabling her to expand and manipulate the fibers into tapestries. This laborious and slow process allows her to create dense, two dimensional depictions of everyday activities and the people enjoying them, as well as spotlighting historic groups, such as the Gee’s Bend Quilters—residents of "Gee’s Bend," in Alabama and descendants of the enslaved people who worked Joseph Gee’s cotton plantation established in 1816. Parker’s use of intimacy in her work is vulnerable and encourages interpersonal connection. This traditional, folk medium is revolutionized by her animated use of color and her humorous depictions of contemporary life.
Mary Tooley Parker
harnesses a unique process in creating her tactile tapestries. Parker spins yarn and cuts her own hand dyed wool into strips, pulling them both through a wooden “hook” device (composed of a linen foundation with a wooden handle) enabling her to expand and manipulate the fibers into tapestries. This laborious and slow process allows her to create dense, two dimensional depictions of everyday activities and the people enjoying them, as well as spotlighting historic groups, such as the Gee’s Bend Quilters—residents of "Gee’s Bend," in Alabama and descendants of the enslaved people who worked Joseph Gee’s cotton plantation established in 1816. Parker’s use of intimacy in her work is vulnerable and encourages interpersonal connection. This traditional, folk medium is revolutionized by her animated use of color and her humorous depictions of contemporary life.
Leaving indelible impressions, Akwasi Gyambibi is a
practitioner of the unorthodox technique of pyrography that involves the burning and penetrating of plywood, cardboard, fabric, and other materials of choice by using a hand held torch, resulting in textured, smokey, sometimes 3-dimensional images. He often enhances his pyrographic technique with a dremel that cuts, grinds and carves into the board, embellishing wood with collage, acrylic, graphite, tapestry, wallpaper, and metal. Gyambibi’s compositions and movements appear highlighted and softened, as the smoke reveals shifting planes of the body and face, amplifying the subject matter of tender, everyday interactions and moments.
Life inspires what I depict. The wood surface is where
I express my deepest emotions, thoughts and
experiences. My point of view is revealed by the free
hand of decorating on wood with bum marks resulting
from controlled application of fire flame or heated gun
directly on wood burning to create textures to define
my works. -Akwasi Gyambibi
Leaving indelible impressions, Akwasi Gyambibi is a
practitioner of the unorthodox technique of pyrography that involves the burning and penetrating of plywood, cardboard, fabric, and other materials of choice by using a hand held torch, resulting in textured, smokey, sometimes 3-dimensional images. He often enhances his pyrographic technique with a dremel that cuts, grinds and carves into the board, embellishing wood with collage, acrylic, graphite, tapestry, wallpaper, and metal. Gyambibi’s compositions and movements appear highlighted and softened, as the smoke reveals shifting planes of the body and face, amplifying the subject matter of tender, everyday interactions and moments.
Life inspires what I depict. The wood surface is where
I express my deepest emotions, thoughts and
experiences. My point of view is revealed by the free
hand of decorating on wood with bum marks resulting
from controlled application of fire flame or heated gun
directly on wood burning to create textures to define
my works. -Akwasi Gyambibi