“The Colour of Ink” Film Screening + “Water & Light” Artist Talk

You’re invited to a special Film Screening and Artist Talk in celebration of the summer exhibition, “Water & Light: Instruments of Magic,” with artists Marta Abbott and Elizabeth Schmuhl.

Suggested donation: $10 (Film Screening)

Artist Talk to follow.

ABOUT THE FILM:

The Colour of Ink uncovers the medium’s mystery and power through the eyes of Jason Logan, a visionary Toronto inkmaker. Marta Abbott is also in the film, included in the exhibition.

Working with ingredients foraged in the wild–weeds, berries, bark, flowers, rocks, rust–he makes ink from just about anything.

Jason sends custom-made inks to an eclectic range of artists around the world, from a New Yorker cartoonist to a Japanese calligrapher. As the inks take on a life of their own, his playful alchemy paints a story of color that reconnects us to the earth and returns us to a childlike sense of wonder.

“Water and Light: “Instruments of Magic,” exhibits work by artists Marta Abbott and Elizabeth Schmuhl, serving as proof through deep knowledge and understanding of the visible and invisible works of the natural world, that magic is real.

Using essential elements often unexamined from the natural world that surround us, both artists highlight the importance of Water and Light by conjuring and bringing forth unique properties that reveal them as instruments of magic. As individual artists creating work with natural inks that rely heavily on water and light, they use their mutable properties such as intensity, consistency, shape, and hue to create artwork alchemy, transforming these elements that exist naturally without a single fixed form.

The series of work in “Water & Light: Instruments of Magic,” contains living material which has undergone a moment of transformation or transmutation through its use as an artistic medium. Both artists utilize their gained knowledge and exploration- chaos and control- while working with natural inks.

As a result, each piece is a snapshot of the artists’ choosing to capture this in-between state that echoes the workings of the natural world, revealing its own magic. The artists both credit the result of capturing this third state as evidence of the magic they find within the ingredients they use, the process of creation, and the pieces they create.

Schmuhl (Detroit) and Abbott (Rome) are also influenced by the cities that they reside in. This additionally informs their respective bodies of work, as both urban landscapes both share a history of decay and transformation. Each artist recognizes magic as an abstract concept that exists through both personal experience and belief. The idea of the supernatural is a human construct, after all; it is an attempt to explain the unexplainable.

This belief is what propels Abbott and Schmuhl to work in the ways that they do, using elements that shape shift and are not static. The result of tapping into the magic present in this ink through their collective creative processes is an exhibition that reflects the natural world and its ever-evolving states, emphasizing the power in fragility. Shown together, the paintings created softly but strongly demonstrate the importance of the natural world and our undeniable place within it.

Instruments of Magic: Water and Light (7/12-8/10) is guest curated by Jessie Devereaux.

On view through Saturday, August 10th.

About the Curator

Jessie Devereaux, based in Brooklyn, NY, is an independent curator and creative director. Since 2006, she has curated art exhibitions independently across galleries and pop-up spaces in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Detroit. Her enduring passion for making art accessible and fostering creative collaboration drives her as a facilitator between artists and the realization of thoughtful exhibitions.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Elizabeth Schmuhl is a multidisciplinary artist who creates work that explores nature, movement, and memory. Schmuhl deeply investigates the natural world, its cycles, and entropy, all of which inform her work. By documenting her experiences, reactions, and interactions through various media, Schmuhl is able to celebrate and share the wonder and beauty she encounters. Schmuhl resides in Hamtramck, Michigan and has taught at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Wayne State University, Oxbow School of Art, and elsewhere.

Marta Alexandra Abbott is a Czech-American artist based in Rome, Italy. Marta uses organic and botanical materials to extract and to describe that which is essential to the human experience of non-human nature, of awe, and of beauty. Her work combines concept and intuition, control and chaos. She seeks to answer age-old questions in contemporary ways, with eyes scanning earth and sky, seeking that which connects them.