Prographica/KDR is pleased to announce two solo exhibitions by local artists Dianne Kornberg (San Juan Islands) and Anne Petty (Seattle). This is each artist’s second solo exhibition at Prographica.
Dianne Kornberg
The Lore Which Nature Brings is Kornberg’s second collaboration with poet, Elisabeth Frost. Dianne Kornberg is a Pacific Northwest photographer. For fifteen years, the subjects of her work were laboratory specimens collected for scientific study. Most recently, she has expanded this practice by collaborating with poets and creating photo-based image/text works. The cross-disciplinary collaboration is a transformative process that has moved Kornberg’s work into new conceptual and visual territory. Kornberg and Frost explore the imagery of bird nests and combine the visuals with poetry about nesting.
We wanted to debunk cliches about nesting, from maternal instinct to the trope of “joyful” birdsong. Mining Romantic poetry (Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley), Elisabeth’s text is mainly found language, a radical “pruning” of famous poems about birds, birdsong, and birth. – Dianne Kornberg, 2018
Dianne Kornberg graduated from the University of Indiana (MFA in Painting) and the University of Washington (BFA in Painting); she is Professor Emerita at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. Recently Kornberg’s work was featured in several solo shows: For All We Know, San Juan Islands Museum of Art, Friday Harbor, WA (2016); Education of the Virgin at Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, MA (2015); Madonna Comix at Augen Gallery in Portland (2015); and Madonna Comix and Other Work with Poets at the Western Gallery at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA (2014). Kornberg’s work was featured in a retrospective exhibition, Field Notes, at the Western Galleries at Western Washington University in 2008 and the Art Gym at Marylhurst University in Marylhurst, Oregon in 2007. Her work has been collected by the International Center of Photography in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Princeton University Art Museum, the Portland Art Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington. Dianne Kornberg currently lives and works in Washington State.
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Anne Petty
Basic Needs is a series of new paintings by Anne Petty depicting scenes of solitary women in the wilderness. As the exhibition title suggests, Basic Needs refers to the investigation of each of her subjects, as they navigate through existential questions and their untamed environments. The narrative in her work is often not named, adding to the unfolding drama. The movement of the brushstrokes across the surface heightens the tension, inviting the viewer to join in the search. Often, the figure fades into the background, becoming part of the landscape.
"The women that exist in my paintings are perpetually hunting and searching. They are acting out of the most fundamental of human concerns - stability, safety, survival. Their isolation accentuates their particular independence and cunning while at once revealing their naked vulnerabilities." - Anne Petty, 2018
Petty strives to create a cross-section of reality in her work evoking anticipation and curiosity. The women figures are painted as heroes amidst a turbulent environment. Petty states, “they hunt for essential answers and survival is their reward”.
Anne Petty received her MFA from the University of Washington in 2009 and her BFA from Missouri State University in 2005. Her work was featured in solo shows at Prographica (2014), Blindfold Gallery (2013) and the Sand Point Gallery, Seattle (2011), including numerous group exhibition in Seattle. Her work is represented in private collections in Washington and California. Petty lives in Seattle and teaches at the Seattle Preparatory School.
