Entangled

Intentional and unintentional interconnectedness, inspired by the scientific study "Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String".

Project curated by: Bonnie Meltzer
Installation curated by: Anna Solcaniova King

Researchers Douglas Smith and Dorian Raymer of the University of California, San Diego, dropped a string into a box and tumbled it for 10 seconds. They repeated the process over and over with different sized strings of various flexibility. The results were that knots happen without specifically being tied. It is no surprise to anyone who has crawled under a desk to untangle electronics cords; brushed long curly hair or tried to conquer blackberry brambles; that knots happen without provocation. Furthermore, the longest most flexible strings in the most spacious confinements became most entangled. Stiff short strings in confined spaces don’t knot. Stuff bags work because of the confined space while a big box of many spools of sewing thread is always a tangle.

In 2008 Bonnie Meltzer heard about the theory and immediately called Ken Hochfeld whose photographs of thickets seemed like a perfect expression of the theory. They decided to pursue the idea for a group exhibition. A short time later Meltzer invited to the exhibition planning two other artists who she knew through Portland Open Studios. Andrea Benson’s encaustic paintings of unraveling dresses wound into balls of yarn and Todd Griffith’s large paintings of tangled balls of string.

First Thursday Opening
September 2, 2010, 6:00 to 10:00

Show closes September 30th.

Open House Reception
September 16, 2010, 4:00 to 7:00

Artworks by:

Bonnie Meltzer

Ken Hochfeld

Andrea Benson

Todd Griffith

Bonnie Meltzer entangled_01

The very nature of Bonnie Meltzer's work is an entanglement. Her crocheted works are a deliberate tangle of magnet wire looping around itself to create shapes and three dimensional forms. Because she mixes so many media together in one piece--painted found objects and digital photography connected to the crocheted wire -- the execution of the concept only works if each part is thoroughly enmeshed into the whole. The subjects she chooses to explore play on the tangling of ideas as well; often mixing seriousness with humor to make social commentary.
In this series the works Meltzer has explored the taming of everyday tangles - hair, phone cords, thread, head and heart. Picturing the ordinary makes us reflect on the untangling of the tangled both in the objects we use and those threads in our mind

Ken Hochfeld entangled_04

With the series "Threads", Hochfeld has captured a personal interpretation of nature’s lyrical grace and mystery in found and somewhat created, fanciful circumstances. He imagines these photographs of vine entanglements and branches as visual equivalents to short verses, each with its own particular melody, created with expressionistic brush strokes of reality and imagination. To common scenes of what we otherwise interpret as disorder and confusion, he perceives a sense of balance, rhythm and continuum, as seen through open windows of photographic frames.

Andrea Benson entangled_02

Andrea Benson's figurative mixed media paintings use multiple layers of encaustic and drawing to focus on gesture, stance and a state of mind that is both personal and cultural. In a tattered and constantly ever-changing unraveling world where everything is enmeshed and entangled they explore a point between confusion, entropy and repose.
In “The String Series”, delicate line and cursive doodle are used to imply the ever-changing unraveling world, a body individual and global, constantly unmade and remade, transitory and tenuous. Each piece features a hand gesture, which symbolizes the actor, the doer, the energy that effects and takes action on its environment. Together, line and gesture form a visually compelling work, rich with shifting metaphors and compound meaning.

Todd Griffith entangled_03

Todd Griffith's knot paintings and drawings from his series "Transitions and Patience" show controlled chaos. The knots appear to be in nice neat bundles, but on closer inspection the order is illusionary. The string is tangled, and more often than not is escaping from its confines. For Griffith, the knots are metaphors for the confusions, stresses and emotions one faces. The title is apt for this series. Patience is as necessary a character trait for navigating change as it is for unraveling a knotted ball of yarn.