Temple Totem Nest

Temple Totem Nest
June 24 - July 28, 2019
Gagné Contemporary

Hunter. Gatherer. Builder. Maker.
and
Trust your instincts
and

The three artists in “Temple Totem Nest” each have very different methods, finding their inspiration, materials and voice in a manner inseparable from the work they make.

Yet each has found a way, a ritual, that brings their inner refuge into being. A form, a shape, a way through color like passing through a door and finding everything changed.

Eva Ennist travels widely, immerses herself in material and cultural practices, gathering new possibilities for her encaustic work, folding in her fibre art and sculptural projects. Her recurring forms and shapes seem elemental in their robust simplicity. Jeffrey Kurland’s approach is the inverse – having developed his own paint application techniques, he is constantly exploring with tools that surprise, derail, and offer up new abstract structures. Robin Roi invites complexity with Japanese rice paper, photo transfers, vintage wallpaper, paint and ink – drawing on her extensive materials collection – and delivers poetic, evocative collage and tableaux.

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Eva Ennist travels and studies extensively in North and Central America, Europe and Southeast Asia. Her work in mixed media and fibre art has been exhibited across North America in public galleries as well as in private and corporate collections. For several years Eva held the position of Assistant Professor, Material Art & Design at OCAD University, Toronto Canada, and concurrently Head of the Fibre Program.

Robin Roi collected her BFA in printmaking and MFA in painting before coming to New York in the 70s, working at The American Crafts Museum and The Heller Gallery while exhibiting her “Pattern Paintings” with Barbara Gladstone Gallery. Robin’s fine art background and passion for the decorative arts has her leading workshops, lecturing, writing articles and advising architects and interior designers.

Jeffrey Kurland has been making art and showing in New York City since 1976. The painting process he uses has been developed over 10 years, and involves dry acrylic skins and films to transfer paint to canvas or paper – a synthesis of painting, printmaking, and collage techniques.