November 2009, Philadelphia, PA–Locks Gallery is pleased to present Microfibers, a three-person exhibition curated by Sue Spaid featuring Danielle Bursk, Caroline Lathan-Stiefel, and Laura Watt. Microfibers is on view December 4, 2009 through January 16, 2010. There will be a reception for the artists on Friday, December 4th, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.
The work of artists Danielle Bursk, Caroline Lathan-Stiefel, and Laura Watt, illuminate the spatial behaviors of chaotic and complex systems. In Danielle Bursk’s drawings of organic forms, hatched lines pulsate and transcend the flat plane. Caroline Lathan-Stiefel’s sculptural installations - curtains made of pipe cleaner and household materials - create, split and transform architectural spaces. Laura Watt’s paintings, derived from an Op Art tradition, explore the movement of geometric form. Their works are purposeful and dynamic compositions of lines, shapes, and patterns.
Spaid finds a shared sensibility in each artist’s work that suggests the supernatural capabilities of microfiber. Describing the exhibit, Spaid writes “By connecting tiny traces to form-micro-joints that permit shapes and forms to bend in infinite directions, Bursk, Lathan-Stiefel and Watt have invented ways to envisage ever-more complex illusory and real spaces.”
The exhibition curator has been active in the artworld as a collector, art writer, curator and university lecturer since 1984. A member of the artUS Contributors Board, she has written regularly for this LA art publication and its predecessor ArtText since 1997. She served a Curator of Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati (1999-2002). As an independent curator, she has organized well over 50 exhibitions for artist-run spaces, university galleries, commercial galleries and museums such as Bellevue Art Museum, Mississippi Museum of Art, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Armory Center for the Arts, SPACES and the Abington Art Center. She is best known for Sue Spaid Fine Art (1990-1995), the scrappy Los Angeles gallery that launched dozens of local artists’ careers.
Microfibers continues the Locks Gallery’s Curator’s Choice exhibitions. Previous curators include David Cohen, Leah Douglas, Patrick Murphy, Klaus Ottmann, Barry Schwabsky and Richard Torchia. An illustrated brochure with an essay by Spaid will accompany the exhibition.
