CHARISMATIC MICROFAUNA
May 22 -June 16, 2012
Artist Reception: Thursday May 24, 6 – 8 pm
Gallery talk originally scheduled for May 26th will be rescheduled
MAKING THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE – Sculptor Cornelia Kubler Kavanagh, in collaboration with biological oceanographer Dr. Gareth Lawson at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is pleased to announce THE PTEROPOD PROJECT: charismatic microfauna.
THE PTEROPOD PROJECT consists of 11 sculptures of tiny marine animals near the bottom of the marine food web called pteropods that are threatened by increasing levels of ocean acidification. Highly abstracted and enlarged some 400 times, Kavanagh’s pteropods are a celebration of the beauty of these microorganisms as well as a warning about little understood aspects of global warming that threaten the existence of these fragile organisms.
In an essay for a booklet about the exhibition, art historian Stephanie Grilli observes that “Kavanagh’s pteropods are ancient and elemental forms whose ocean existence is a reminder of our own watery origins and our primal consciousness. With appealing sculptural shapes evocative of Arp, Miro and Kandinsky,” adds Grilli, “Kavanagh’s figures could be protean spirits of the deep, winged messengers from the ocean world.” She even surmises that “their potential demise would be the first ripple in what could be called a sea butterfly effect.”
In his essay for the booklet, Dr. Lawson imagines a future ocean where the normal series of chemical balances is so disrupted by ocean acidification that shelled organisms, such as pteropods, are particularly at risk. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is supplying wall text, graphics on the marine food web, photographic enlargements of actual pteropods, and a video showing the creatures in “flight.”
For more information, contact Blue Mountain Gallery at (646) 486-4730, or Kavanagh’s agent, Heather Gaudio: work (203) 801-9590 or cell (917) 579-2701. Gaudio can arrange for private viewings.
Kavanagh has had five previous solo exhibitions in New York, and has participated in a number of group shows nationally and abroad. In 2005, she represented the United States Virgin Islands Council on the Arts at the 51st Venice Biennale, and her work has been shown at SOFA Chicago, the Miami Design District during Art Basel Miami Beach and two OPEN shows in Venice-Lido which exhibit artists from around the world. She has also been extensively exhibited in galleries and museums in the north east.
Kavanagh received an AA from Pine Manor College, a BA in Art History from Barnard College and an MA from Columbia University. Listed in Who’s Who in American Art, Kavanagh is a member of the Connecticut Women Artists, a member of the National Association of Women Artists and a colleague of the National Sculpture Society.
Kavanagh works out of studios in Norwalk, CT and St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. The full range of her work can be seen by visiting www.corneliakavanagh.com
