Intermingling land, sea, and sky with fragments of domestic interiors, Charlotte Schulz’s dreamscapes are framed by unusual atmospheric events and supernatural lighting with no horizon to anchor them. It seems as though the viewer possesses a disorienting omnipresent viewpoint — at once hovering above, resting at surface level, and peering beneath the ground where we might find a coral reef or a sunken boat.
In Schulz’s work, landscape and the mind are intended as one and the same. Curious objects tucked into her compositions heighten their surreal quality, with the aim of leaving us to ponder their combined meaning. A lone animal woven into an otherwise desolate scene might be an allegory for our own precarious condition — our vulnerability in the face of real threats. Made with charcoal that she blends with her fingertips and shapes with delicate erasure, Schulz’s minutely scaled images connect in a network of interlocking vignettes — each drawing a tangled constellation of small events.
Thirty of Schulz’s works are featured in A Constellation of Small Events alongside a video produced at ArtYard, which takes the viewer on an immersive journey across their surfaces. Filmed using a macro lens, the perspective is Lilliputian with folds in the paper becoming mountain ranges or icebergs.
Also on view at ArtYard this spring is Plasticity, featuring art from Spanish designer Alvaro Catalán de Ocón. Created from PET plastic waste, the works include four hand-tufted rugs depicting Google Earth views of the Ganges, Niger, Yangtze, and Indus river systems and 22 PET lamps made by community weaving collectives in Australia, Chile, Colombia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Japan, and Thailand strung together into a single fixture.
A Constellation of Small Events is curated by Jessica Hough and is part of Philadelphia’s (re)FOCUS initiative celebrating women artists. It continues through June 2 at ArtYard, located at 13 Front St., Frenchtown, New Jersey. Public hours are Wednesday through Sunday from 11am to 5pm, and until 7pm on Thursday.
A free gallery talk with Schulz is on Sunday, April 28 at 11am.
To learn more, visit artyard.org.
ArtYard is an incubator for creative expression and a catalyst for collaborations that reveal the transformational power of art. Its campus includes an arts center featuring exhibition space and a state-of-the-art theater as well as two buildings housing its residency program.
Source: hyperallergic.com
