Janet Kurnatowski Gallery is pleased to present MORPHED a group exhibition featuring sculpture now. MORPHED includes the work of Sandra Casti, James Clark, Forrest Myers, Gelah Penn, Heidi Pollard, Kris Scheifele and Rebecca Smith. As a collective their work shows exuberance for the transmutation of traditional materials and conventional forms of display; these artists highlight and engage various phenomenological experiences: space, time, light, process and surface.

Sandra Casti and Kris Scheifele create fantastically imaginative and labor intensive sculptures through the gradual accumulation of material. Casti transforms a ubiquitous adhesive, 3M masking tape, into organic wall sculpture. Casti’s tape piece creates a dramatic undulation of intricate concave/convex forms that result in a delicate outer-shell, which resembles canyon walls, smoothed by centuries of rushing water. Scheifele employs acrylic paint to create her self-described “Paint Balls.” This ritual begins with an insignificant kernel of acrylic paint; she then, obsessively, paints successive layers of acrylic over the original kernel. When her labor is complete the carved paint ball may have grown to the size of a softball, which is then displayed on hand built shelves. However, not all of Scheifele’s work is an additive process. She also subtracts material by cutting thin layers off of her paint balls and other works. These shaved acrylic shards are piled together; time and proximity unite the atomized material into stratified and abundantly colorful, cubes.

Gelah Penn and Rebecca Smith invert their respective and diverging historical artistic roots by disrupting traditional forms of display. Penn deploys a variety of synthetic materials to examine the linear language of drawing in sculptural space. In her site-specific installation, Niagara, these include bubble foil, mosquito netting, vinyl lanyard and latex tubing. Smith nods and winks at the authority of Minimalist Sculpture but challenges the autonomy of “specific objects” by placing Lake Surface and Lake Effect her steel pieces on the wall. These wall sculptures are painted with interference acrylic paint. The interference pigments create hues that shift depending on the angle the work is viewed from. The austere but intimate works rely on agile lattice forms; that engage the space with swift horizontals, strong verticals and curvilinear diagonals, creating a serenity of form that resembles a three-dimensional Mondrian.

Heidi Pollard employs improvisation to create her sculpture, entitled Planktonette, a reference to images of the underwater species, recorded by Ernst Haekel, a Germanbiologist and artist.The piece is constructed from a combination of discarded objects, modest materials and High Desert (California) detritus: bottle caps, steel hanger strapping, tin cans and cactus wood. The finished object is a humorous meditation on scale, ideas of value and the ancient; as well as a physical testament to the contemporary phenomenon of sea morphing into arid land.

James Clark and Forrest Myers use sculpture to celebrate the transcendence of reality. James Clark’s Itt, is very promethean, inventive and presages present sculptural form. Clark’s piece engages both the viewer’s physical and psychic space. Clark uses: hair, neon lights, an air compressor and a thin, film like envelope membrane that contains an electroluminescent light to erect a weird and playful visual dialogue. Forrest Myers sculpture Our Balzac (For John Chamberlain) 1997 – 2012, ismade from powder coated steel and polypropylene. It is composed of two cylindrical containers. A black colored container sways dangerously off of its vertical axis, the container bubbles to its brim with space-time / the continuum of spiritual ecstasy. Yet, a slick and glistening crushed orange container has been morphed into it; this gesture may be the tipping point that hurls them into their rightful dimensions; much like the work of the renowned French Realist author, Honore de’ Balzac.

Morphed will be on view from February 17 – March 18, 2012. Please join the artists for an opening reception on Friday February 17 from 7-9pm. For more information or images please contact the gallery.