Home/Body
Opening Reception Friday May 25, 6-8 pm
Painter Lori Richards and ceramicist Andrea Piller come together for the first time in the show Home/Body at Wall Space Gallery to explore themes of the home, the body, and nature, and the intersections of these in daily life. While different in their respective media, both Richards and Piller work in abstracted forms, infusing the whimsy and beauty of the natural world into their work.
Home/Body integrates reflection, introspection, and attention to natural forms. The splendour of the everyday becomes the focal point in this collection.
“This series of work is a reflection on what it means to be “home” and how I relate to my immediate surroundings. There is a calmness to routine, habit and ritual that allows for a wandering of the mind, delving more deeply into the poetry of daily life.
When I am still I can observe, meditate and then respond through the creative process.
The simplest and most ordinary things reveal their intrinsic beauty and I try and capture this quality in my work.
– Lori Richards
“In Home/Body I reflect on the moment and sensation of a newly found natural object or an awe inspiring sightline. It provokes me to think about the personal, emotional and intellectual landscapes within each of us. To construct out of clay, not the literal but metaphysical moment, that is what I intend. Making sense of connecting to place; letting it merge into the physical body and expand into the psyche. Place, home, body, mind.
I seek the connections between our bodies and fragments of the earth. Nature is the magnificent model, the immediate muse of my designs and imaginings. I try to redefine and celebrate in a gesture.”
– Andrea Piller
Friends and colleagues, Richards and Piller are both graduates of the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) where they met some 30 years ago. Richards explains, “Andrea Piller and I welcome the opportunity to show our work together for the first time…Since meeting at OCAD, we share a visual literacy. Though we work in different mediums and in separate studios, we are often amazed at how our work interconnects, amplifies themes and inspires new directions in our art making.”
About the Artists
Home/Body is the third show at Wall Space Gallery for Kingston-based artist Lori Richards. Working primarily in abstract landscapes rendered in layers of colourful paint, Richards explains: “Places affect me. When I find a landscape that moves me, I take photos which become the starting point for my work in the studio. I paint in a very intuitive way, building up paint on canvas in thin washes then eventually thicker impastos. Experimenting with mediums and glazes and colour upon colour, I add or take away until the feeling seems right.” A graduate of both the Fine Arts Program at Dawson College, Montreal (1980) and the General Arts (honours) Program, Ontario College of Art, Toronto (1984), Richards has shown in numerous galleries across Eastern and Southern Ontario. Throughout her career, she has developed a rich approach to art-making.
New to Wall Space Gallery, Andrea Piller has maintained a ceramic studio since graduating from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1983. Her work is primarily hand built sculptural vessels that are interpretations and responses to the natural world. She has shown her work both nationally and internationally and has been the recipient of numerous art awards and grants. She shares her enthusiasm and knowledge for art and clay through Toronto schools including numerous indoor and outdoor mural installations, teacher workshops, education conferences and art centres across Toronto, and more recently in the Quinte region.