Artist seeks out ‘wild places in urban spaces’
“Wild Places” is the title of a show of prints through June 7 at Artspace at Untitled, 1 NE 3, by an artist-in-residence at the downtown gallery.
Emma Difani, the New Mexico-born artist, describes herself as “an observer, collector and mapmaker” who seeks out “wild places in urban spaces.”
She said these include “the four feet squares of soil inset in sidewalks, the birds’ nests in the eaves of bridges, and the ivy creeping across parking garages.”
Difani said each of the prints is “a kind of map, drafted for discovering alternative definitions of nature in the city and embracing the grown and constructed.”
Outlines of vague rock or pebble-like shapes give way to a light gray band and circles in the blue sky in a small and larger work, both called “Above and Below.”
Palely printed shapes that suggest leaves, petals, pebbles, stars in circles and perhaps the intertwined branch of a tree, traverse the three prints in her “Wild Places” series.
Dark holes seem to waft across a light brick-red plane in a framed serigraph, poetically titled the “Land of Brick and Clouds.”
Subtle pastel shades interact with small repetitive shapes and marks, as well as ladder- and branchlike elements, in a large serigraph and graphite work titled “Land Listening.”
A bit more landscapelike, with red mesa-like shapes under dark starry skies, are four small serigraph-monotypes on hand dyed paper called “Stars Above Rocks.”
Difani’s exhibit is highly recommended during the rest of its run in Artspace’s Press Gallery.