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EXHIBITION:
Nelleke Nix DATES: November 1 - 26, 2005 RECEPTION: Thursday, November 3, 5- 8 PM |
ADDRESS: 511 West 25th Street, Suite 605, NYC 10001 HOURS: Tuesday - Saturday. 12 - 6 PM CONTACT: SOHO20 Chelsea Gallery: 212.367.8994 |
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NEW EXHIBITION URGES US TO MOVE BEYOND THE ROLE OF PASSIVE WITNESS A Lion's Share: The Beautiful World of a Dying African King November 1-26, 2005 at the SOHO20 Chelsea Gallery |
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(New York, NY)...........Artist Nelleke Nix recently journeyed to South Africa to witness, document, and comment on a modern day tragedy: lions by the hundreds are dying from bovine tuberculosis, a disease introduced into South Africa by cattle imported from Europe. The result is "A Lion's Share: The Beautiful World of a Dying African King" which will be on view from November 1 through 26, at the SOHO20 Chelsea Gallery, 511 West 25th St., New York. This gripping show of 60 objects, all made from, with, or in paper, reflect the animals' dire situation. "What I witnessed first hand was illness, but also the private world of these majestic animals," she says. "It is a very beautiful world, absolutely breathtaking...the way the sky fuses with the landscape and the dust's colors affect the color of everything else. There are violets and ochres and purple browns, completely like the coloring of a lion's coat." Ms. Nix said her experience is reflected in the 60 objects in the show, including sculpture, drawings, digital images, and a video. Five of the objects are large, 3-dimensional installations, mounted on the walls of the gallery. They are created from wood and newsprint from The New York Times and the New York Post, and are interactive. Some of the paper on which she sketched and painted was made from plants she found along the way. Blossoms and cut grass became part of a multi-dimensional piece. One of the images is a sketch she made of a lion that was close by. "It is a direct portrait, a fast drawing of the lion which looked at me straight in the eyes, full of intelligence. It seemed as though he was trying to figure out what my intentions were, just as I was looking at him to try to figure out who he was and what his intentions were. I sketched him at just that moment." Also revealed in her work is her changed perception of the animals. "Having seen them in the wild, I no longer view them as big cats, but beautiful, smart, powerful animals with an extremely well set up system of surviving. What is happening to them is something people should know about." A Lion's Share: The Beautiful World of a Dying African King will be at the SOHO20 Chelsea Gallery between November 1 and 26. The Opening Reception is on Thursday, November 3, from 5 to 8 p.m. There is also a Family Reception on Saturday, November 5, from 1 to 6 p.m. For further information, call the gallery at 212-367-8994. Net sales proceeds of this exhibition will be donated towards expenditures for research and treatment of bovine tuberculosis in lions. Nelleke Nix is a mixed media artist who uses whatever materials are available to create her semi-abstract works. "Normally, I go to a place and let it influence my thinking and feelings. I never know what elements I'll find." All of her work is rooted in her life experiences. She has traveled and lived among the native populations of Papua New Guinea, Costa Rica, Mexico, British Columbia, South America, and South Africa, and explored Antarctica and the Galapagos Islands. "It is a world of visual, physical, and spiritual interconnection," she maintains, which has led her to contemplate and comment on the natural order, human history, and how the two interrelate. Ten years ago, she created a book based on her experiences in Papua New Guinea. Inscribed in its pages were their folk tales and legends, including their own creation myth. (The people of the Huli Valley believe they are genetically related a common ancestor in Israel, who walked along the coast from Africa to Papua New Guinea when the continents were still connected.) Her book Zones of Time, Sand and Rain (2000) which portrays the flora and fauna of Costa Rica, was the winner of 2000 Library Fellows Award from the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, D.C. Handwritten in the ancient lettering of the Middle Ages, with pages of text and prints layered to suggest the fallen leaves on the forest floor, the book contains several stories and anecdotes about conservation efforts. Her trip to Antarctica inspired ship mobiles, paper disks fashioned from penguin nesting materials and embellished with their images, that were on view in Soul Sails, Antarctica at the Staten Island Maritime Museum in 2004. In Ropes, Knots & Ties at SOHO20 Chelsea Gallery, she stressed connections through the medium of knotting and tying. The latter exhibition was inspired, also, by her surgery. "As my body started to tie and knot itself back together again, the images best expressing what had happened and what was ongoing took shape in my mind and were realized. She knotted a large boat sculpture for the Maritime Museum exhibition. "The body as a vessel and the vessel as a boat had been part of my artistic vocabulary since childhood, therefore it was part of the chain of the knotted, tied, and connected fragments." Ms. Nix asks us to participate in the dialogue, to move beyond the role of passive witness. Her message is that change is necessary and we humans, a cog in the life cycle, must protect it. She also views her work as a long continuum. In Brief: Nelleke Nix is a prolific artist. She maintains a studio in Manhattan, New York and in Seattle, WA. She received her MFA from the Royal Academy of Visual Art and Design, The Hague, Netherlands. She has been a curator, juror, facilitator, publisher and author through her illustrious career. Ms. Nix has received dozens of awards, and her works are found in many collections, among them: the Victoria and Albert Museum and Tate Gallery in London; National Women's Museum in Washington, DC; Seattle Art Museum; Rhode Island Museum of the Holocaust; University of Washington Allen Library in Seattle; Tari Women's Cultural Center in Papua New Guinea; and the Children's Hospital, Warsaw, Poland. Besides SOHO20 Chelsea Gallery, her works have been exhibited at National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; Gallery Studio D'Ars, Milan, Italy; National Art Center, New York; Illinois State Museum, Springfield; New Wave Poster Show, Los Angeles; Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing; Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art, Staten Island; Bumbershoot NW Arts Festival, Seattle; Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island; William Christopher Gallery, Tucson; Kunsthandel Ina Broerse, Laren, Netherlands; Allen Library, University of Washington, Seattle; Collins Gallery, Central Library, Portland, Oregon; University of Michigan Zoological Museum, among many others. She is the owner of NN Studio Gallery Press, Inc. in Seattle. Her work 1940-1945 Remembered, which resides in the permanent collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, has been selected for inclusion in a major exhibition of artistsą books, to be held on the occasion of the Museum's 20th anniversary in the fall of 2006. Her work Under the Ice was selected for inclusion in the print exhibition at the Art Museum in Shenzhen, China, December 2005. Nelleke Nix Studio, Postal Box 375, Mercer Island, WA. 98040 For further information or visuals, please contact the Soho20 Gallery at (212) 367- 8994, fax (212) 367-8984, or email soho20@earthlink.net |
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