WHAT: Artformz Presents
Women on the Verge
Donna Haynes & Rosario Bond
WHERE: Artformz
171 NW 23rd Street
Wynwood Art District
Miami FL 33127
www.artformz.net
WHEN: Opening Reception: Saturday January 9, 2010, 7-10pm
Show Dates: January 9, 2010 – February 9, 2010
Women on the Verge
Artformz is very pleased to present its first exhibition of 2010. The two-person show features the most recent work of artists Donna Haynes and Rosario Bond. Both Bond and Haynes work in multiple medias and are known for their unique woman’s perspective of contemporary society. Through their work each offers a personal viewpoint on current concerns.
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Donna Haynes has a story to tell. The artist is adept at intricately weaving a narrative into each artwork. The work tells of people she has met in her journeys and about her own personal experiences in life. Key to the artist’s oeuvre is the method through which a story is conveyed. Incorporating various layers of text and images, the type and font, the pages, the book cover, pen & ink, or desk and chair: all are icons of contemporary story telling. For this exhibit, which Haynes herself describes as a tremendous personal breakthrough, the artist focuses on the autobiographical. There will be two featured installation pieces.
The first installation is an audience participatory/interactive piece. The piece consists of a detailed light box construction revealing the artist’s near death experiences. In this work “Nine Little Deaths” the audience is asked to participate by adding their own personal accounts to Haynes’ list of near deaths. A functioning vintage typewriter is incorporated into the sculpture to capture these stories. It is the artist’s intention to display the participants stories later in the gallery and on the website.
Her second installation deals with her personal story of battling Breast Cancer. The artist believes that this story is important to tell now in the wake of the new Breast Cancer screening recommendations offered by the United States Preventive Services Task Force. The artist was at the early age of thirty when her cancer was discovered. Without the early screening methods, the results could have ended up fatal. This installation tells of her voyage through the experience using hand printed fabric, wallpaper and paintings.
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In the project room we have the work of Rosario Bond. Her site-specific installation deals with environmental concerns and how we are succeeding in breaking down our urban landscape. The materials used are recycled items, dried branches and a variety of discarded objects the artist collects from different sources but mostly from our urban areas. The installation elements appear disgusting and attractive, as a way to make us more sensitive to the subject. Although, the compound looks very spontaneous, the artist purposely shows twisted objects, rotten elements, as signs of decay everywhere. The paintings over the walls add to the chaos, confusion and hectic environment of the room.
Also included in the artists presentation are her latest neo-expressionistic paintings made out of thick layers of impasto, set over multiple drippings, disrupted lines, and child-like figures where individuals, objects, and nature intertwine in voracious relationships. Her paintings depict parody portraits, represented through gestural brushstrokes and a bright and intense palette. Bond dislocates the modern narrative, dismantling logic and linearity in the character’s connections in the scene. She tackles and traps her figures in a challenging discourse dominated by parody and dark humor.
Her paintings are collections of personal mythologies combined with critical imagery, posed over disrupted settings and dislocated compositions inhabited by eerie beings. Her works are a monumental palimpsest of delirious and contrasting characters that allude to the feminine condition, its social burdens, and its critical stereotypes. Bond’s work proposes a complex women’s imagery that shapes a dense portrayal of womanhood in our contemporary societies. She satirizes her figures through sarcastic allusions to fashion, consumerism, and the woman’s social and cultural demands. There are saturated and wild scenarios of broken and busy lines over multiple drippings, and high contrasting colors, creating a disruptive and chaotic dream like world. In her hectic and fevered paintings, full of hallucinating entities transported by rambling composition and restless scribbling lines, Bond establishes a radical dialogue with the Contemporary German neo-expressionists.