Yellow @ Specialist Gallery
Specialist Gallery is pleased to present Yellow, an exhibition of new work by Julie Alexander, with Dalani Tanahy and Nicholas Nyland.
For this exhibition, Alexander combines her practice with that of two other artists–Dalani Tanahy and Nicholas Nyland–converting the gallery space from a site for autonomous objects, to an environment where manifold practices cross-pollinate. Rag-washed walls produce the ecosystem in which Alexander’s paintings, fabric constructions, and a bamboo sculpture, can commingle with works by Tanahy and Nyland.
Tanahy works with kapa, a Hawaiian bark cloth made from the inner fibers of the Mulberry tree. Pounded with handmade tools that leave an embossed texture, the cloth is then printed with ʻohe kapala-bamboo stamps. Tanahy’s work is a combination of history, culture and the Native/global perspective.
Nyland–a ceramicist and multimedia artist–creates work which pulls from a collection of histories, bridging design, craft, and fine art. In Yellow, Nyland’s work aims to examine and challenge notions of gender and high art in ceramics, looking at both the aesthetics of embroidery samplers and the function of the decorative object, and the practices’ perceived feminine tradition.
Viewing her practice both in conjunction and in dialogue with these other artists who share complex relationships to nature and historical practices, Alexander’s Yellow aims to further dialogue and artistic exchange. Because yellow has ambiguous cultural meaning, it is an open space ready for free association. There, yellow is connectivity, a feeling created from the interactions that continue to inform and form us. With Yellow, Alexander constructs a landscape that both encourages and respects continuous dialogue amongst these art objects and their makers.
