ART! Imago exhibit explores architecture of community, fractals and order of the universe

New art exhibit at Imago explores the architecture of community, fractals and art’s relationship to the harmonic order of the universe

A new group exhibit hosted by Imago Foundation for the Arts (IFA) will explore the architecture of community, fractals and art’s relationship to the harmonic order of the universe.

IFA’s featured artist Anne Marie Rossi has titled her artwork in this exhibit, “LIVING ARCHITECTURE: The Materiality of Community.” It includes over 30 sculptural pieces hand crafted from different materials and compiled into what Rossi calls five “sculptural communities.” She says, “Every community has an architecture. I build forms by wrapping, binding, weaving, casting and exposing their structures. Some parts are opaque and protective; others remain transparent enough to reveal what holds them together. Across the installation, the same question repeats: How can difference become structure rather than division? Strength does not come from sameness. It comes from varied parts staying in relation — supporting, yielding, carrying weight and remaining visible to one another.”

Rossi will host an event to close the show that includes a film and conversation about her process, a performance by jazz musicians and a collaborative poetry activity on Saturday November 7 at 3 p.m. The event is free and the public is invited.

Spotlighted IFA artist Dot Bergen combines her advanced degrees in biology with her artistic talents as she applies an understanding of fractals to her encaustic painting practice. While it has long been known that a walk in nature is restorative, a new field of science that looks at what happens inside the brain when we are immersed in nature has discovered that the importance of nature lies not in the specifics of what we see, hear and smell but in the fractal nature of these entities.

She says, “Encaustic and fresco are some of the oldest painting techniques known to mankind. I combine these mediums to create paintings replete with fractals, known as craquelure. The paintings navigate scale, seeming microscopic and cosmic all at once. They reference sunbursts, plate tectonics, ocean currents, cellular diffusion and everything in between. This touches on the idea of self-transcendence, feeling that we are part of something much larger than ourselves. It reminds us of what it means to be human, and of what connects us rather than what separates us.”

Bergen will give an artist’s talk at 4 p.m. on October 24 entitled, “From Frescos to Fractals: An Encaustic Journey,” The talk is free and open to all.

While guest artist Lynda D’Amico’s paintings in this exhibition are representational, they are first and foremost paintings — built from line, tone, and form. Whether the inspiration is a cityscape or a still life, the finished work is never simply an illusion of the real thing. Shadow becomes solid, part of the geometry of forms organized into a motionless rhythm. The subject is transposed into a plastic equivalent, taking on a reality of its own, independent of what inspired it.

She says, “I sometimes use the Golden Section, a mathematical system of proportion, to bring even greater unity to my work — a system believed by many ancient cultures to reflect the harmonic order of the universe, relating each part to the whole. When painting expresses the essential truth of its subject, it becomes both inventive and poetic, revealing a metaphysical and spiritual dimension.”

Current IFA Exhibiting Artists include Dot Bergen, Jim Cain, David Clarke, Eileen Siobhan Collins, Mary Dondero, Stephen Fisher, Philip Gruppuso, Gary Heise, Carl Keitner, Lisa Lowenstein, Eileen Mayhew, Linda Megathlin, Catherine Moylan, Rina Naik, Mercedes Nuñez, Anne Marie Rossi, Howard Rotblat-Walker, Lenny Rumpler, Duff Schweninger, Suzanne Taetzsch, Pat Warwick and Meredith Wolf.