Ann Marie Miller and Deirdre Sheean
Gallery Opening: Saturday, October 5
Exploring Abstraction displays the work of two artists working with different materials. Each has similar goals to simplify complexity, and is inspired by shapes, colors, and textures In nature. Their work simultaneously contrasts and complements each other offering compositions that evoke a specific time and place.
Ann Marie Miller is a fiber artist who explores moments in time and space through the manipulation of fiber and mixed media. Her tapestries and woven works have been exhibited at Studio Montclair, Huntington Arts, Monmouth Museum, The Center for Contemporary Art, d’Art Center in Norfolk, VA, The Paley Gallery at Moore College of Art, and New Hope Arts Center, among others. She is a member of the American Tapestry Alliance, and the Handweavers Guild of America.
My work in fiber is both figurative and an exploration of movement and texture. I am challenged by the sculptural nature of fiber on and off the loom. Subjects range from environmental elements to political and social justice issues, providing a diverse body of work. I combine fiber and related materials responsively and seek traditional and non-traditional intersections that are expressive and intuitive. I admire and am inspired by the work of Magdalena Abakanowicz, Sheila Hicks, and Agnes Martin.
Deirdre Sheean is a mixed-media artist with a graphic design background. She paints in acrylics on heavy multi-media artboards or wood panels. Pencils, crayons or sharpies scratched into wet paint and geometric or handmade stencils are used extensively in her work to help create visual rhythms, strengthen the composition or to focus the eye on a certain area of the painting. Sheean pays close attention to the power of differences (small shapes beside larger shapes; the play of dark alongside light; scrubbed or sketchy areas juxtaposed against flat, solid areas of color). The act of layering is an integral part of her process, often revealing shapes that she should accentuate or directing me to simplify or combine areas. But it is by imposing limitations–the size of the canvas Sheean will work on or the number of colors she will use, the size of her brush, or whether to use pencils, or crayons to be her greatest teacher and ironically the provider of a never-ending source of possibilities.
