Why Can’t We Have a Biennial Every Year?
The 2023 Women’s Biennial at 1020 Collective
An Art Review
Hosting the 2023 Women’s Biennial might seem like a chore to an ordinary art gallery/venue, yet 1020 Collective meets the task.
Though I’d heard of 1020 Collective, the show was my first visit to the site that not only hosts exhibitions but contains a recording studio, performance and multi-purpose event space, a cafe and bar, and a store offering locally-produced art and various tchotchkes.
Here with two floors and 12,000 square feet, the approximately 100 artworks featured within the biennial are afforded enough individual space so that the viewer can appreciate each artwork with”to borrow from Virginia Woolf”a room of one’s own.
Fitting for a display of women’s art, yes?
Running the gamut from jewelry, ceramics, sculpture, photography, painting and fabric arts, the exhibit appears to encompass all art mediums.
Our Women’s Biennial showcases the work of 44 women artists within our region. It demonstrates a myriad of skill and unique perspectives and expression. The work is inspiring and highly considerate, leaving a viewer excited to create art, said the show’s curator, Sarah mk [sic] Moody, whose artwork is also represented within the exhibit.
Self exploration is a popular theme. Moody’s own photograph Landlocked presents a surrealist image while presenting a woman kept in check. Showing only the lower half of a woman squatting in a confined, partially-filled bathtub with goldfish swimming about her in the water, the picture hints at personal restraint and dreams deferred. Angela Giuliano’s self-portrait oil painting, The Zenith of Life is a Woman in Full Bloom, represents in part finding strength in becoming their most authentic and honest version of themselves, according to the artist’s statement.
Nature rates high as inspiration for several artists within the show. Em Crisman’s Limitless Sea is a watercolor and cyanotype creation on paper. An almost poster-size image of a simple blue body of water, its white and golden ripples upon its surface produces an almost abstract work. A New Beginning by Sandy Tanner is a fabric creation. With a spectrum of blues, purples and reds stitched together as its background, a reflective golden circle surrounded by golden paint symbolizing a rising sun.
Four tiny photographs the size of credit cards are Fuji Instax prints that compose a local picture (pardon the pun) of the lakefront in Laurel Mitchell’s lives [sic] along the shores of Lake Erie. With elementary images of lake and sky, the beach, an unoccupied dock, and a stony path, the artwork creates quiet travelogue pictures of a natural site unobscured by people.
Nature and self exploration are fine, yet the biennial isn’t devoid of making feminist statements. Using toy kitchen utensils (a spatula, a rolling pin, etc.) and cast glass, Barbara Yerace and Valerie Mann’s creations explore the bygone limited roles that women had in society”in the home.
Danielle M. Bartone’s horizontal sculpture, Counterpunch, (see above image) is a punching bag enshrouded within a white dress that’s framed and mounted to the wall. According to the artist’s statement boxing serves as a metaphor for the self hatred caused by not living up to those standards and the self-destruction to our souls as we attempt to fit into a mold made by others.
A forewarning: the gallery hours for 1020 Collective are limited: Thursday, Friday and Saturday (or by appointment, depending on the webpage), so plan your visit accordingly.
The 2023 Women’s Biennial continues through January 28. The 1020 Collective is located at 1020 Holland St., Erie. For more information visit 1020collective.com.
