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Jack Fischer Gallery is pleased to present scratch the surface, a two-person exhibition by Kate Nartker and Leigh Wells. Join us for the opening reception on July 13, from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. at our Potrero location. The show will be up through August 31, 2019.
Nartker and Wells use two distinct modes of visual imagery to explore the passage of time and how we interact with the world.
Kate Nartker’s film stills from personal, found, and stock footage, as well from The Library of Congress are presented in weavings and jacquards that give us a new, surprising and tantalizing aspect of pixelation. They are presented in a way that aims to dissolve the depth of an image and at the same time, encourage us to slow our perception of time.
The work has a way of engaging our sense of touch so we know what we are looking at. As the work becomes more and more abstract we begin to long to find pattern and recognizable images, creating urgency in us to find meaning. But we can’t touch, so the gaze brings us a shifting between pattern recognition and the unpredictable in the weaving structures.
In Leigh Wells’ collage and textile works, existing materials such as found paper and fabric, provide inspiration and create layered meaning. She eschews clarity in order to engage with imagined mental states and what is unseen. While her work appears to be non-representational, through it she engages in what she calls “a conversation with something that cannot be seen within myself, an imagined something inside others, or a third unknown thing.”
The contrast in modes of practice between these two artists to achieve abstraction is of great interest. Nartker’s use of figuration and narrative blown out to repel meaning asks us to accept feeling/touch as a means toward knowledge. In contrast, Wells’ ambitious use of abstract shapes keeps us engaged and curious without providing answers.
“Art is the communication, of what is secret, by what is secret.” - Wassily Kandinsky
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Kate Nartker works between animation and weaving to disassemble images, narrative, and material structures. She received an MFA from the California College of the Arts in 2012 and is a lecturer in the Art Department of San Francisco State University. Her work has been included in exhibitions throughout the Bay Area and internationally, including The Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco, The Contemporary Austin, and the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art. Nartker lives in Berkeley, and is represented by Jack Fischer Gallery.
Leigh Wells creates collages, drawings, and three-dimensional constructions exploring the mysterious boundaries between truth and the unknowable. Her work has been included in solo and group exhibitions in the US and Europe, and is part of several private collections. She holds a BFA summa cum laude from the University of San Francisco with further study at Crown Point Press, the San Francisco Art Institute and Parsons/New School in New York. Oakland born, she lives and works in the Bay Area, and is currently a visiting artist at Minnesota Street Studios in San Francisco.
311 Potrero Avenue, San Francisco, CA, 94103
