Not Your Run of the Mill

Exhibition Dates: October 7 – November 17, 2016
Opening Reception: Friday, October 7, 6-8pm

Chandra Cerrito Contemporary is pleased to present the group exhibition Not Your Run of the Mill, including painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation art by six artists whose work references textiles in unexpected ways. Featured artists include Leeza Doreian, Jacqueline Sherlock Norheim, Sandra Ono, Dimitra Skandali, Ruth Tabancay, and Claudia Tennyson.

The phrase run of the mill originates from early American factories (such as a textile mill producing fabric) and referred to work that had yet to be graded and therefore was not exceptionally good or bad. Now however, the phrase refers to something that is commonplace or that which ordinarily occurs.

Contrary to the commonplace or conventional uses of textile, the exhibition highlights imaginative concepts that challenge the viewer’s perception of what they see in the work as it relates to textiles. Paintings and sculpture resemble fabric and fabric appears as paintings. One wall piece is embroidered with material uncharacteristic of the handicraft, while familiar fiber is stitched onto unexpected material in another piece.

Leeza Doreian meticulously renders folded fabric in her painting and drawings. The artist’s interest in both high and low art is reflected in the use of discarded mass-produced fabric items from thrift stores, combined with the formal precision of representational painting.

Jacqueline Sherlock Norheim folds, overlaps, and hooks together nylon mesh to create wall pieces that subvert the literal view of the object and image, challenging the viewer’s perception of contrast, depth, and recognizable form.

Sandra Ono shapes scented trash bags into a wall piece with densely textured form similar to the coarse fabric of a hook rug. Ono’s creative use of ubiquitous, utilitarian products re-contextualizes the materials to create new, non-functional and organic forms.

Dimitra Skandali creates work inspired by the Greek island where she grew up. To create the piece in the show, Skandali used Kofto, a traditional technique of embroidering from the Cycladic islands in the Aegean Sea. Used by generations of women including the artist’s own female family members, the craft is also practiced by young women when preparing for a new domestic life after marriage.

Ruth Tabancay’s embroidered works are based on the micro-organisms such as bacteria, fungi, human cells and tissue that she worked with as a hospital laboratory technologist. The attention to detail necessary to make the hand-sewn pieces is much like the assiduousness required in a lab while working with microscopic cells.

By using materials such as tape, rubber bands and glue, Claudia Tennyson’s work is often inspired by the idea of repair. For her installation in the exhibition, she demonstrates such ideas through the act of stitching thread on vellum and wood veneer, and patching layers of paper into delicate collages.