Homage to a Circle: Tammy Rae Carland, Marsha Cottrell, Zoe Leonard & Davina Semo
In a bipartisan spirit, Anthony Meier Fine Arts will host a joint exhibition with Jessica Silverman titled “Homage to a Circle.” The show explores spinning, ringing, orbiting, enclosing, ruminating, and revolving. More than a formal exploration, the show is a social and psychological journey that leads to all sorts of unexpected terrains. Zoe Leonard’s photographs of sidewalks punctuated by chewed gum connect foot and mouth with an abstract wasteland. Tammy Rae Carland’s Discograms, made directly on photographic paper with the light refracted from a disco ball, suggest the spacious bliss of a magical night on dancefloor. Marsha Cottrell harnesses the tool of a laser printer as one would a paint brush, running mulberry paper through the printer multiple times to create unique images of spectral suns. Finally, Davina Semo’s cast-bronze “Bells” beckon and unite communities, ring the time, and strike for freedom. They are gender-fluid concave forms impregnated by clappers. This four-woman show presents the physical work in real space. Please come see it in the round.
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Presented by Anthony Meier Fine Arts & Jessica Silverman at 1969 California Street.
17 November – 15 December 2020
Leonard's series of sun photographs, direct images of the sun in the sky, engage perception that is not tangible. Breaking the cardinal rules of both vision and photography – don’t look directly at the sun, don’t photograph directly into the sun – Leonard records the glare and flare on the lens, the grainy spotting on the film. Depicting what cannot be seen, Leonard’s sun photographs explore sight through ephemeral feel, beyond optical fact.
Discograms are exposures that Carland made by placing a disco ball under a darkroom enlarger and letting the light refract onto photo paper, capturing the pattern you'd see on a nightclub wall. The discograms refer to a time when Carland would frequent discos, even as a punk, because that was one of the few spaces where queer people could fully exist.
Marsha Cottrell’s monochrome abstractions transcend the quotidian office computer and printer used in their making. In playful exchange with her chosen medium, the artist nudges mathematically defined lines and shapes grabbed from the software’s tool palette across the field of the screen, registering the intangible information in multiple passes of carbon-based toner using a laser printer as one might a paintbrush.
Semo’s ongoing series of cast-bronze “Bells,” have clappers attached to thick powder-coated chains that can be held and rung. Bells beckon and unite communities, ring the time, strike for freedom, signal an alarm, and announce an arrival. Semo’s bells are multi-gendered – concave forms impregnated by clappers, but also convex phallic shapes suggestive of missiles.
