Amelia Biewald: Perfect From Now On

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Magnan Metz Gallery is proud to announce Amelia Biewald’s third solo exhibition with the gallery.  Perfect From Now On will be on view from November 12 – December 23, 2010.  The artist reception will be held Thursday, November 11th from 6-8pm.

Amelia Biewald’s artwork is rooted in the intricacies of fables, art histories and inherent visual possibilities of “supernaturalness”. Inspired by the eerie beauty of caves, and the visual appearance of their organic timeless structures, Biewald transforms the gallery space into a subterranean cave-scape. In the large wall drawing Salon Noire (Niaux Cave, France) (2010), sensuous, contrasting surfaces, transparencies and textures are produced with a labor-intensive layering technique similar to the slow formation of cave structures like stalactites and stalagmites.  Similar to the cave paintings at Lascaux, France, Biewald’s piece creates a space where the lines between the natural and the artificial are blurred, creating a tableau of desire and anxiety, boldness and accomplishment.

In Perfect From Now On, the beauty of the subterranean cave world is linked to the grandeur of castles and cathedrals from the Baroque period.  Referencing a theory that ancient cave paintings were translations of constellations, Biewald creates a series of carefully crafted glass bell jars, serving as mini dioramas.  In the piece Andromeda (Chained Maiden) (2010) we see a vast world unfold within the confines of a crystalline encasement.  As the artist explains, “I have always been interested in the artifice and illusion inherent in eighteenth century society; here I imagine subterranean courtesans, intrigues and encounters.”  In Andromeda, Biewald fuses both ancient systems of understanding the natural world with a clutter of modern man’s follies. By transporting these characters into the timelessness of the crystal, they become one with the formation of the subterranean world- like the ant imprisoned in amber for millions of years- perfect from now on.

Amelia Biewald earned a B.F.A from the Rhode Island School of Design and an M.F.A. degree from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. The recipient of many awards and fellowships, Biewald received a 2004 residency fellowship from the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. She has exhibited widely in the midwest and taught at the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is an adjunct professor at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

For information and visuals, please contact the gallery at 212.244.2344 or info@magnanmetz.com