Exhibition Description
NADA Miami 2019
Iris Eichenberg and Neha Vedpathak
Dec. 5 – Dec. 8, 2019
BOOTH 12.06
Ice Palace Studios
1400 North Miami Avenue
Miami, FL 33136
For NADA Miami 2019 Simone DeSousa Gallery brings together the works of two Detroit-based artists, Indian artist Neha Vedpathak and German artist Iris Eichenberg.
Both Vedpathak’s and Eichenberg’s works that are part of this presentation reference ritualistic characteristics of certain kinds of manual labor that are attributed to the feminine, yet in both the traditional goal of beauty is defied, and gives place to unsettled new readings. Vedpathak’s vigorously plucked pieces are in direct conversation with Eichenberg’s disheveled, oddly scaled, yarn works. The works evoke a sensual and unapologetic inharmonious tone. Through the reductive “sculpting” of surfaces, as well as cumulative mark making, both artists reference time, and invite an experience that is intimate and sensory. Vedpathak and Eichenberg’s works deliberately disrupt classic ideas of landscape and portraiture, as well as perceptions of femininity, and the notion of elevated forms of expression.
NEHA VEDPATHAK, I can see through this and Continuum, 2019, Japanese handmade paper, acrylic paint, thread. Installation.
Preview works by Neha Vedpathak at NADA Miami 2019, Booth 12.06, Simone DeSousa Gallery
IRIS EICHENBERG, Darker, 2019, wood, graphite, charcoal, wool.
Preview works by Iris Eichenberg at NADA Miami 2019, Booth 12.06, Simone DeSousa Gallery.
IRIS EICHENBERG
Iris Eichenberg (b. 1965, Göttingen, Germany). After graduating from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam in 1994, Iris Eichenberg worked as an independent artist, art educator, part-time curator, and organizer of art-related events. She then taught at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie from 1996 to 2006. In 2006 she accepted an appointment as Artist-in-Residence and Head of the Metalsmithing Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and has been teaching there full time since.
As part of her practice, Eichenberg has been regularly invited to lecture, act as visiting critic, and give workshops at various art programs in Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America, through the support of cultural institutions including: Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, Herbert Hofmann Prize, Gerrit Rietveld Academy Award, and The European Ceramic Center in Den Bosch.
Eichenberg’s work can be found in several museums including The Cooper-Hewitt (New York), The Museum of Arts and Design (New York), The Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), the Schmuck Museum Pforzheim, the Fondation National d’Art Contemporain (Paris), and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Texas). Her work has also been collected by private foundations including the Francoise van der Bosch Stichting (Amsterdam) and the Rotasa Foundation (California).
NEHA VEDPATHAK
Neha Vedpathak (b. 1983, Pune, India) is an interdisciplinary artist known for her rigorous and inventive process-based practice. Vedpathak has been an invited artist-in-residence at Skopelos Foundation for the Arts, Greece, Bharat Bhavan Graphic Studio, India, Anderson Ranch Art Center, Colorado, CAMAC, France and Fountainhead Residency, Miami. Vedpathak’s works have been shown at ASU Art Museum, The Weatherspoon Museum, The Poetry Foundation, and the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) among other local and national institutions and galleries. Her work has been recently acquired for the permanent collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Vedpathak’s upbringing in India has played a vital role in shaping her understanding and approach as an artist. Growing up, rituals and meditation were a prevalent part of her life. In 2009, Vedpathak discovered a technique she calls plucking, where she separates the fibers of Japanese handmade paper using a tiny pushpin. The resultant paper resembles lace fabric, which she then uses to create individual works. The plucked paper is also saturated with paint, sewn, and collaged to create a single complete work. Plucking is a slow and repetitive process that Vedpathak embraces as a form of meditation.
Neha Vedpathak currently lives and maintains a studio in Detroit.