Seeds: Gail Gorlitzz and Karin Birch
CURATOR'S STATEMENT

The title of this exhibition, Seeds, refers to a way of working. Both Gail Gorlitzz and
Karin Birch construct their art from tiny components, growing thousands of parts into complex, yet coherent works. It is precisely this approach to art-making, additive rather than subtractive, that in many ways defines the work of these two artists and provides the common ground upon which this exhibition is built.

For Birch and Gorlitzz the Seed is both the original idea and the original stitch or bead from which a complete work is patiently coaxed. Both artists describe their working process as intuitive, meaning their original concept develops over time and they let the work evolve as it will during the making. Neither is tied too strongly to a precise idea or intellectual message. Instead they seek to build pieces that take the viewer traveling to new destinations, creating highly personal worlds through both the abstract language of form and skillfully introduced references to nature.

Gail Gorlitzz works primarily with small glass beads. Stringing, wrapping and stitching, she layers these beads in ever shifting color combinations into organic forms that are striking in their vibrant intensity. As with much glass work, there is the danger of being seduced purely by the beauty of the material, and indeed these works shimmer regally with both translucent and reflected light while they wow the viewer with the sheer audacity of their creation. Yet Gorlitzz deftly sidesteps this potential pitfall by hinting at another, darker side. These forms are gorgeous, joyous, humorous and transcendent, reminiscent of childhood fantasies and the world of Dr. Seuss. But the shapes are also slightly awkward and perplexing, a bit off kilter. The colors, while dynamic and intense, can also be jarring or mildly saccharine. Gorlitzz presents us with the strange and fantastic creatures of her inner world, but as in the frozen world of Narnia, there is also danger afoot. Without this edge the work would be merely pretty and amusing, with it the work lingers.

Much art derives its' potency by embracing duality, and Gorlitzz has mastered this skill admirably. Not only are her sculptures both beautiful and a bit grotesque, not only are they both humorous and slightly scary, but she also manages to use a painstakingly slow and laborious process to shape work that appears spontaneous and truly organic. These works really do seem to have grown up on their own accord. To encounter the pieces together in the gallery is to enter a world both familiar and strange.

Karin Birch makes stitched, beaded and painted abstract works that are small in size and gentle in impact and message. She harnesses the meditative and repetitive process of stitching to tap into her freely flowing thoughts, incorporating both distinct ideas and shifting psychological states into her compositions. Her works conjure a quiet and poetic intensity that requires close viewing to fully appreciate, yet they are nevertheless fully capable of staking out their own very distinctive space.

Describing much of her work as a "direct response to loss' and her new pieces as moving away from that state, Birch is able to explore these powerful emotions through her use of color, shape, line and texture. Although the nature of the work is highly personal, her non-specific use of an abstract vocabulary allows her message to take on universal implications. While Birch does let the process shape the end result, she sometimes also employs a distinct set of symbols that has evolved and changed over her many years of art-making. Using X's and O's to symbolize the male and female in earlier pieces, she has since moved through a purely abstract phase to her more recent use of loops to symbolize communication. In the Head, Bridge, and the most recent Reluctant Voyage utilize this technique. Understanding the personal significance of these marks is not necessary, however, as the symbols can be read simply as patterns that add rhythm and a linear dynamic to the composition.

It is worth noting the connection both Gorlitzz and Birch feel towards nature and how their abstract work, while based largely on the interior life, also frequently references the world outdoors. Gorlitzz sometimes makes objects that come almost straight from nature, if a bit skewed and tampered with. Babylon III, for instance, looks remarkably like a tangle of kelp from the Pacific Northwest, and Night Bloom is unmistakably a fantastical flowering tree. Mandala, a bit less obviously, resembles a meeting of a group of amorphous polyps or cells gathering on a microscope slide. Birch's natural references are more landscape or place based. Her compositions of colors, shape, patterns and marks combine to create small and inviting atmospheric spaces that pay homage to water, earth and sky. The use of rectangular layers within the picture plane creates windows through which the imagination may enter these calmly enticing spaces.

One cannot respond completely to the work of either of these artists without pondering, at least for a moment, the concept of time. There is an almost physical reaction to the time so obviously spent creating these pieces. The painstaking and laborious process, be it stitching or beading, is there for all to see. Those with more patience for such tasks can imagine the pleasure in this kind of repetitive process, while others react with disbelief and a grudging respect. But just looking, really looking, at both artist's labors can produce a slight slowing of the pulse, an awareness of the vastness of time, a yearning for quiet, shifting thought and meditation. We live in an age where slow process and handwork are ever more rare, and art produced in this manner bears an unusual and moving combination of both poetry and soul.

Nancy Sausser
Exhibitions Director
McLean Project for the Arts