"DISTILLED LIFE" OPENS AT BARD COLLEGE ON TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, AT FISHER ARTS BUILDING

Exhibition Features the Work of Eight Artists: Julie Heffernan, Adam Hurwitz, Julia Jacquette, John Lavin, Judith Linhares, Steve Mumford, Donald Traver, and Carrie Yamaoka.

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.-The exhibition "Distilled Life," curated by Medrie MacPhee, associate professor of studio arts at Bard College, opens on Tuesday, October 5, and is on view through Sunday, October 31, at the Fisher Studio Arts Building on the Bard College campus. An artists's reception will be held on Tuesday, October 5, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Both the exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

"Distilled Life" refers to the process that the artist goes through in getting to the essential or abstract quality of anything. Distillation is a process of refining, condensing, and purifying or extracting volatile substances. Although there are a wide range of expressions is evident in the works of the eight exhibiting artists all the works attempt to find a way to reflect and distill the metaphysical qualities of things.

The artists included in the exhibition are Julie Heffernan, Adam Hurwitz, Julia Jacquette, John Lavin, Judith Linhares, Steve Mumford, Donald Traver, and Carrie Yamaoka.

Donald Traver, originally from Poughkeepsie, New York, is a Manhattan-based. His work is included in numerous collections, including those of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Getty Museum. He has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts, among other institutions. His work has been described as having a strong link to the paintings of Italian modernist Giorgio Morandi, whose representations of ordinary objects take on a fluid identity that goes beyond the objects nature. Through reiteration and layering, Traver's pots and frames take on the presence of family groups, cityscapes, and architecture. "Through Traver's sifting and stacking a visual distillation occurs," explains MacPhee, "disrupting the absolute identities of things we think we know."

Julie Heffernan has had one-person and group exhibitions nationally since 1985. She has received numerous awards, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. "Heffernan paints both large-scale figurative and still-life paintings that are initially similar to seventeenth-century Dutch still-lifes," comments MacPhee. "On closer scrutiny of the layering of images, one is confronted with a complex narrative that weaves in symbolic and psychological references."

Medrie MacPhee, curator, is associate professor of studio arts at Bard College. Among her solo exhibitions have been shows at the Paolo Baldacci Gallery, New York City; Art and Living Gallery, Seigen, Germany; and Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto. Her work has been reviewed in the Paris Review, Art in America, ARTnews, Canadian Art, Now, and Artforum. She has also taught at Columbia University, Cooper Union, Rhode Island School of Design, and Sarah Lawrence College.

In conjunction with the exhibition several of the artists will give lectures. These will be scheduled throughout the month of October and are open to the public. For further information about the exhibition and lecture schedule, call 914-758-7674.

This event was last updated on 03-02-2001

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