Maryland Art Place is a shrine to detail.
“I don?t think of my work as obsessive, but other people must,” said Baltimore artist Renee van der Stelt, exhibiting her work in the multi-media show Obsessive Aesthetics at MAP.
Using fine pins and other tools, van der Stelt pricks and punches thousands of tiny holes into paper to play with shapes, light and shadow, she said.
“In Longitude, Latitude, I took all the lines out of a map, cut them into paper and hung them in front of continents,” she said.
Obsessive Aesthetics is a “phenomenal reminder of the highly processed, beyond painstaking” hours that artists devote to designing, creating and arranging installations. You have to see the labor-intensive creations by van der Stelt and other artists on display at MAP in order to understand the artists? meticulous art-making methods, MAP Executive Director Julie Ann Cavnor said.
Turning two-dimensional drawings of the world into three-dimensional installations blurs the line between drawing and sculpture.
“I?m interested in how we see, conceive, portray and project space,” van der Stelt said. “I?m interested in making maps that distort and make you think twice of how we think about space; North American maps prominently display our country, but a map from a Russian perspective would prominently display that continent.”
Exhibiting artist Dawn Gavin also examines a viewer?s sense of place.
Originally from Scotland, the University of Maryland professor reconfigures found atlases, maps, film and passports. She mounts her map-tipped pins directly to a gallery wall to comprise a large, circular piece.
In Obsessive Aesthetics, mixed-media painter Leslie Hirst depicts her paths through nature while foraging for four-leaf clovers. She embeds the elusive, botanical charms into her drawings and paintings on wood with layers of paint and epoxy resin.
“Viewers need to come to the gallery to appreciate the artists? processes,” Cavnor said. “Seeing a photo just isn?t going to cut it for this one.”
IF YOU GO
Obsessive Aesthetics
» Venue: Maryland Art Place
8 Market Place, Baltimore
» When: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday until July 21
» Information: 410-962-8565, mdartplace.org
