"Second Nature," a group exhibition focused on nature, and "Pam Brown: Bound by Wire and Time," a solo show of sculptures, will open at the Arts Center at Duck Creek in Springs on Saturday, with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Both will continue through Sept. 27.
"Second Nature," which will be installed in the John Little Barn, features works by Felix Davey, Francine Fleischer, Andy Harris, Elisa Jensen, Kate Salke, and Charles Yoder that explore "the landscapes we have shaped, and the wilderness that shapes our lives," according to the gallery.
Focused on the overlooked, the close at hand, and nature's quieter aspects, the show features work that attends to the natural world and its persistence in our everyday lives, rather than to its picturesque qualities.
Davey works primarily with photographs, text, and installations that deal with specific landscapes and borders. Fleischer is well known for "The Water in Between," photographs shot from above of swimmers in Mexican swimming holes. Butterflies, stacked stones, bells, and sleeping bags recur in Salke's paintings.
Harris's collages center on painted paper, with layered surfaces often reflecting the natural world. Jensen's recent paintings feature the geometry of interiors whose windows open on quietly unpopulated landscapes. Yoder's landscape paintings "command your attention with their graphic rhythm and realistic detail," according to an essay by Allison Malafronte.
On view in the Little Gallery, Brown's skeletal sculptures, constructed from wire, sheet metal, and salvaged materials, refer to both animal and human anatomy. Delicate and at times whimsical, they use positive and negative space to let light and air pass through.
She cuts shapes from sheet metal with scissors and joins them using sewing techniques, with the metal and wire standing in for fabric and thread. The approach evokes both domestic craft traditions and early industrial manufacturing, "recontextualizing gendered labor as something corporeal and emblematic, distinct from the heavy-handed conventions of traditional sculpture," according to Duck Creek. Her themes include deforestation, extinction, and the relationship between politics and the environment.
Brown's work ranges from large-scale public installations to intimate tabletop and wall pieces. Her public sculpture has been seen at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, Chesterwood Preservation in Stockbridge, Mass., and other venues across the Northeast. She is based in Stony Brook.
