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Sophia DeJesus-Sabella, Aspen Golann, Magdalena Pawlowski
Jewett Art Gallery
Sept. 5 - Oct. 20, 2023
Yesterday Happens Today, Tomorrow's Already Here features work by three New England-based contemporary artists: Sophia DeJesus-Sabella, Aspen Golann, and Magdalena Pawlowski.
Weaving on a loom is central to Sophia DeJesus-Sabella's practice. Humans have used looms to transform loose fibers into fabric for thousands of years, with evidence of loom-woven fabric going all the way back to the Neolithic period. DeJesus-Sabella combines typical fibers and unlikely found materials to create sculptures and installations that examine issues of class, gender, and queerness. Inflected by her own blue-collar upbringing, the resulting objects blend time-intensive hand labor, human, absurdity, and pathos to speak more broadly to the question of what it means to be useful and valued.
Trained in 17th to 19th century woodworking, Aspen Golann uses the aesthetics of early American furniture and objects to critique the social inequalities of that time and today. Her practice is deeply engaged with the question of whether the beauty of traditional craft objects can be separated from the racism, classism, and misogyny of their originating time period. Fine finishing techniques lend her pieces the authority of mastercraft, while unexpected forms introduce an element of uncertainty to the objects-- are they tools, or toys, or sculptures? Are they a celebration or a critique of the history of American decorative arts? And what does it mean for an object to inhabit all those identities simultaneously?
Egg tempera, Magdalena Pawlowski's medium of choice, was the primary paint in use in Europe up to the early Renaissance period, when it was supplanted by oil paint. A famously fast-drying paint that resists easy storage, egg tempera can be as precise as it is fussy, and lends itself readily to intricate work. Pawlowski's paintings depict spaces where staid ordinary objects and personal memories hybridize with almost hallucinatory colors, patterns, and details, siting the scenes firmly in the tradition of still life painting while destabilizing the represented spaces and allowing the objects to stand in for personal reflections on tenderness, anxiety, precarity, and more.
All three artists look to the past in their use of traditional materials and techniques to expore contemporary themes. The results are frequently beautiful, sometimes funny, and come packed with meaning as recognizable images and forms are layered over the context carried by the media themselves. Traditional techniques are not relegated to the realm of history-- for these artists, the materials and craft of yesterday are as vital as ever today, and possibilities for the future are clarified through the practice of the past.
Yesterday Happens Today, Tomorrow's Already Here was on view in the Jewett Art Gallery from Sept. 5 - Oct. 20, 2023.
Select Exhibition Images
Wavy Lady with Shelf
Aspen Golann
bleached and ebonized maple, brass, black tampico
2021
It takes two
Sophia DeJesus-Sabella
handwoven bamboo and linen, nickel grommets from my mother, sawhorses from my landlord, stoneware paddles by Victoria Schenck
2022
July Wildflowers
Magdalena Pawlowski
egg tempera on panel
2023
Sophia DeJesus-Sabella is an artist, weaver, and educator based in Hartford, CT. She graduated with Departmental Honors in Fibers from the Massachusetts College of Art & Design in Boston in 2019. Her work has been exhibited throughout New England and has been featured in publications like The Boston Hassle and Warp and Weft magazine. She has been an Artist in Residence at Byrdcliffe, ACRE, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and Hartford Artisans Weaving Center. She has received grants from the New England Foundation for the Arts, Assets for Artists, and the Northwest Connecticut Arts Council.
Aspen Golann is an artist and studio furniture maker currently based in southern New Hampshire. Her work has been exhibited internationally and published in American Craft, Architectural Digest, Fine Woodworking Magazine, Elle, Luxe, American Period Furniture, and others. She maintains an active teaching practice and in 2020 founded The Chairmakers Toolbox-- a project that provides free tools, education, and mentorship for BIPOC, gender nonconforming and female toolmakers looking to build sustainable practices. She serves on the board of A Workshop of Our Own and as an ambassador to the board of Fine Woodworking Magazine. Recent recognitions include the 2023 Award in Craft from the United Artist Foundation, a Windgate residency at San Diego State University, and a Critical Craft Fellowship at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware to explore the physical and social history of the Windsor chair.
Magdalena Pawlowski is a painter based in Connecticut. Born in Detroit, MI and raised on an island off the coast of Cape Cod, MA, she received her MFA from the University of Connecticut and her BFA from the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts in Old Lyme, CT; she also studied at the Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington D.C. Recently awarded the Artistic Fellowship from the Connecticut Office of the Arts, she has participated in numerous exhibitions and fairs, including Spring/Break Art Show in NYC. Her work has most recently been published in Tomorrow's Talent Vol. III.
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