'Relics Of Abstraction'

Amy Guadagnoli 

For the past 25 years, Colorado native printmaker Amy C. Guadagnoli has been away from home—living and working in the communities of Austin, Texas, Bangor, Maine, and just outside of Washington, D.C. in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Throughout these diverse landscapes and climates, she’s created colorful, abstract woodblock prints depicting images transformed from her surroundings and her subconscious—landscapes of the mind that at once reflect and obscure where she has been and what she has seen.

The woodblock prints and works on paper for “Relics of Abstraction” will highlight these otherworldly realms that travel inside the artist’s mind from place to place and continue to evolve now that she has returned to her Colorado home.

Guadagnoli’s artwork investigates perception—specifically how we see, name, and construct narratives from visual stimuli, experiences, and memories.

Jerry Rhodes

“The firing process I use for my pottery is often described as Raku, but the motivation behind my use of this technique might be considered its philosophical opposite. Rather than seeking a harmonious balance or simplicity through my work, I try to achieve dynamic and imaginative results by challenging the boundaries of gravity, material science, chemistry, and sometimes, common sense. Often, I will use traditional style glazes and classic post firing reduction techniques, but other times I’ll use plant food, steel wool, and horsehair during the firing, and add African porcupine quills to complete a composition. The results are usually very dramatic.”

“I also like to combine seemingly disparate elements drawn from a global, temporal, and cultural palate to form a composition. Some pieces may blend science with antiquity; Einstein’s equations for Special Relativity carved around the rim of a classic Greek form, for instance, while others may represent a cultural fusion; African and Polynesian tribal components combined into a loosely symbolic presentation. In the end, I’m not trying to resolve the different elements that go into a piece, but rather, trying to bring the composition to a point where it reaches a temporary détente within itself.”

“Each piece I create is unique, each one represents a new and exhilarating learning experience, and every one is an adventure.”