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Indepth Arts News:
"Mary Temple - Northwest Corner, Southeast Light"
2011-02-03 until 2011-05-25
Rice Unversity Art Gallery
Houston, TX,
USA
Rice University Art Gallery has commissioned a new
installation by New York artist Mary Temple. In her "light installations," Mary Temple paints
directly on walls and floors creating experiential environments in which light and shadows
appear to be cast from nearby windows, despite the absence of a natural light source.
Temple’s virtuoso painting technique not only tricks the eye, but also poetically freezes the
ephemeral, fleeting moment of passing time. The opening celebration will take place on
Thursday, February 3, and will feature remarks by Mary Temple at 6:00 pm. Complimentary beverages, including ale from Saint Arnold Brewing Company, will be
served. The event is free and open to the public.
Northwest Corner, Southeast Light is the largest to date in Mary Temple’s ongoing light
installation series. The title is a reference to how she imagines a large swath of sunlight might
appear in the northwest corner of the Rice Gallery space. Even on sunless, overcast days
visitors to the contemplative space will be reminded of certain moments and qualities of light.
With each installation Temple has become more and more interested in not only the feelings
of disbelief it provokes in viewers, but also the kinds of memories her light and shadows,
which often appear to be cast through bay windows and canopies of trees or foliage, may
conjure in the viewer. Temple notes:
I’ve thought about it a lot and I think the only other time you would notice that
kind of light and beauty is on a Sunday morning when you are having coffee. You
are relaxed, you have time to notice, and your brain will actually let you notice
that. You are in a different state; your body and your mind associate that image
with the feeling of, ‘It’s my day off.’ To be able to create a couple minutes of that
for someone is important to me.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Mary Temple received a BFA and MFA from Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. She
has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Brooklyn Museum,
New York; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, New York, and The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum,
Ridgefield, Connecticut. Her work has been shown in recent group exhibitions at The Drawing
Center, New York; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem,
Massachusetts, and Western Bridge, Seattle, Washington. In 2010, she was the recipient
of a Basil H. Alkazzi Award for Excellence in Painting, a New York Foundation for the Arts
Fellowship in Painting, and The Saint-Gaudens Memorial Fellowship. Mary Temple lives and
works in Brooklyn, New York.
GALLERY TALK AND LUNCHEON
Mary Temple will give a gallery talk at noon, Friday, February 4. A complimentary light lunch
will be provided to all who attend.
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