Adjoa J. Burrowes’s work, “Run Down and Run Over” was selected for the juried group exhibition “Made In Virginia 2022” at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art where she won second prize for Best in Show. She was also asked to contribute tools and process materials to the museum’s educational Art Lab. Congratulations to Adjoa and to all the participating artists from the state of Virginia!
Installations shots by Echard Wheeler, Courtesy of Virginia Moca
Distinct Studios Fine Art is pleased to present Sarah J. Hull’s Ostinato and Coda series in the Small House Gallery of Goodwin House in Alexandria, Virginia in July and August of 2022.
Sarah has a background in architecture, science and visual art. She received her BA in Architecture from Wesllesley College with pertinent course work at M.I.T. Her varied background informs her work including her explorations of music.
In her art, she explores the rhythmic variation in our daily lives. Using natural fibers and hand embroidery stitches, each work explores it’s “objectness” with the tension created between hand-stitched materials and the structure of the underlying grid. The resulting work creates a mediative presence.
In her process, she begins with a concept that has has inspired her. She then follows that idea in a series of works that create an iteration of the theme. The Ostinato series demonstrates this process elegantly. In music, an Ostinato is a short melodic phrase repeated throughout a composition, sometimes slightly varied. A rhythmic Ostinato is a short, constantly repeated rhythmic pattern. In the Ostinato series by Sarah, she uses the concept of repetition with slight variation to create fiber based works that hold their own as single works but displayed together form a visual melody.
Sarah currently lives and works in Washington DC. She is active in the art community through the District of Columbia Art Center (DCAC),
nationally through the New York based National Association of Women Artists (NAWA), and internationally through the UK based Society for Embroidered Work (S.E.W.). Currently, she is enrolled in the Royal School of Needlework’s Certificate & Diploma program and was a member of the 2019 – 2020 DCAC Sparkplug cohort. Most recently, she successfully presented an independent solo exhibition of her most recent series The Topologicals at Studio 1469 in Washington DC and was one of the artists in Distinct Studios first group exhibition in 2022, Before, During, After at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virgina.
Photo Credit: Oliva Weise
Location:
STUDIO 1469
1469 Harvard St (rear)
Washington, DC
GALLERY HOURS
Fridays 3:00pm – 7:00pm
Saturdays 12:00pm – 4:00pm
By appointment: email sarah@sarahjhull.com
April 29 – May 22, 2022
Opening Reception: April 29, 2022 6:00pm – 8:30pm
Artist talk: May 12, 2022 6:30pm (in person and live stream)
Closing Reception: May 22, 2022 10:30am – 12:30am (bagels and coffee)
Sarah J. Hull proudly presents her solo exhibition at Studio 1469, Taxonomy of Evanescence. Featuring works primarily from two of her recent series, this exhibition considers the mechanics of awareness and memory and how they interact not only with each other, but also with time and space. These themes converge in the thoughtful meditations on the traces of existence that remain and those that fade. Fading, just as energy fields that extend towards a point where its amplitude decreases.
Memories overlap and merge over time. In these works, fabric, threads and paint are layered one upon another to not only create directional movement within the structure of the main geometric elements, but also create forms that gently emerge and recede from the surface and the viewer. Each piece takes on an organic quality creating a dialogue between the materials, “the hand,” and the underlying grid through the use of natural fibers and hand embroidery. The underlying grid provides the groundwork where basic forms are mirrored, disrupted, and subjected to rotational symmetries and inversions. In some works, only faint remnants of the grid remains.
Speaking about her work, she says: “Just as I watch a piece unfold as it is created, I hope that each piece manifests slowly to the viewer, increasingly revealing its hand-worked existence. This temporal experience of introspection, inquiry, reflection, and pleasure connects me with the work and the viewer. I hope the intimacy of each piece sparks internal contemplation in the viewer as art of a more complex and responsive experience – just as with an individual’s interaction and connections within the fabric of community and society.”
The naturally occurring rhythmic repetition and variation present in nature, described by science and mathematics and echoed in daily personal existence provides the foundational inspiration for the work. Each piece is at once a meditation on personal exploration, the interconnectedness of individuals, and the greater forces of life itself.
You can learn more about Sarah and her work by visiting her Distinct Studios artist’s page.
I’ve learned that some times the best opportunities come when you least expect them. The opportunity to collaborate with Angie Newman Johnson Gallery on an exhibition as Distinct Studios LLC came after a year of unexpected personal twists and turns that made the experience of starting up an arts consultancy challenging. We could not have asked for a better experience right out of the gate. It was a rewarding experience to curate this exhibition for the community of EHS and also for the arts community at large. Thank you to Elizabeth Vorlicek and the team at the Ainslie Arts Center of Episcopal High School and all of the exhibiting artists. Thank you as well to everyone that came out on a rainy evening in February for the in-person opening. We appreciate you! Below is a link to the exhibition page and a gallery of photos from the opening reception and the exhibition. Stay tuned!
