Works by
Catherine Carter
Jennifer Pepper
Esmé Thompson

January 22 – February 19, 2004

context: 1. The parts before or after a statement that can influence its meaning. 2. The circumstances that surround a particular event, situation, etc. 3. The discourse that surrounds a unit of language and helps to determine its interpretation.

synonyms: framework, situation, environment, surroundings, circumstances, background, connection, relationship, conditions, precincts, milieu, climate, atmosphere, meaning.

Although we know when we know something, we also know when we don’t. This ability to think about our conscious experiences is perhaps one of our most important cognitive abilities and is linked to our capacity for introspection, to think and reflect upon our past experiences in order to help us perceive, shape or define who we are in relation to the world around us.
 
This exhibition is an examination of the working processes of three artists, Catherine Carter, Jennifer Pepper and Esmé Thompson, and the possibility of creating a dialog between them to explore the various ways they respond to narrative, incorporate language, information, materials and materiality, pattern and repetition of form in order to reveal and/or mask content, to create or alter meaning. The visual logic that each artist utilizes along with certain physical forces inherent in the chosen media/materials in each of their works reflect the myriad of influences, the bits and pieces of daily experiences that shape for each of us meaning/value in our lives and give us the ability to define our experiences as they in turn help us to anticipate potential encounters with the unfamiliar or unexpected.  
 
Catherine Carter explores the shapes of the handwritten word, their interaction and implied motion.  The lines in these works refer to the visual aspects of written text, rather than its literal meaning.  “My work is an exploration of the designs of calligraphic marks, textile weaves and ‘lines’ of the natural world – tree branches, spider webs, stems, stalks and ripples in the water. Each image is characterized by the varying directions of exploratory lines.
 
“The paintings have a layer of meaning for me beyond my appreciation for the visual intricacies of interlocking lines.  At first, the work identifies what is known, as represented by the literal meaning of words, then goes further to imply the possibilities of the unknown. The paintings ultimately refer to the vast potential of what is unfamiliar, intangible and intuitive, as suggested by the ‘meaningless’ swirling shapes.”
 
Carter received her M.F.A in Painting from UMASS Dartmouth in 1997 and makes her home in Framingham. She is currently represented by Genovese/Sullivan Gallery in Boston.  Recent exhibitions include New Paintings, Genovese/Sullivan Gallery; Spring Series, Bromfield Gallery, Boston; Rhymes & Rhythms, ArtWorks at Dover Street, New Bedford; New Art 2000, Michael Price Gallery, Boston; and New Paintings, Gallery 244, New Bedford. 
 
Jennifer Pepper’s current work specifically relates to language systems. Pepper states that concepts and issues that have remained relevant to her are in her own words, “acts of accumulation, issues of the body present/body absent and concepts that articulate the active reciprocal process of translating one thing in our world for another. My working and conceptual practices reflect my interests in patterns of growth and systems of exchange between ideas and objects.
 
“My sculptural works resonate visually spoken and handwritten words. Using fragmented sentences, repetitive sounds, and snip-its of conversation .… the projects are created in cut and stitched leather, crocheted nylon, cast rubber that comically creep and droop across walls, drop from the ceiling, are shoved into corners and scatter and sprawl across floor planes. Clipped texts in patent leather present the slipperiness of language, while rubberized words twist and curl in animated space. Information supplied by specific texts, curls, twist, tangle, and fold back on itself illuminating the very nature of language functions as having endless variables when the activity of perception, interpretation and the process of translation is examined.”
 
Pepper holds an M.F.A. from The University of Connecticut and received her B.F.A.  from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. She currently has a teaching post at Cazenovia College, Division of Art and Design and before that was Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at Alfred College. Recent exhibitions include Slieve, Fulton Street Gallery, Troy, NY; Sounding, Brownson Gallery, Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY; J. Pepper & M. Nelson, Munson Williams Proctor Institute, School of Art, Utica, NY; Group Exhibition, Brooklyn, NY.
 
In nature and in art, simple patterns often organize complex structures. Esmé Thompson seeks to emphasize connection, integration and the relationship of the parts to the whole, searches for the links that knit these worlds together.  “The correspondence between man-made decoration and design found in nature is elaborated in my work.  Cross-referencing patterns in my paintings, I depict similarity between, for example, the microcosm of a cell and the macrocosm of an ornamental element of architecture.
 
“I have a life-long interest in the way painting creates space and relates to a site in which it is located.  In the 70’s I began to do paintings that were planned to relate specifically to particular exhibition spaces and installations in which all the parts were interactive.  My concerns shifted away from the painting as object to painting as an experience or environment.  Over the past ten years my interest in creating an interactive visual narrative resulted in the creation of multiple panel pieces in which the relationships of the parts to the whole is fundamental. In recent years I have painted on metal with transparent washes and linear networks of color.  My installations are groups of densely painted panels, often as many as 30-50 pieces.”
 
Thompson is affiliated with 55 Mercer Street Gallery in New York and Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. She received an M.F.A from Yale University and is Professor of Studio Art at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH. Thompson is also the 2003 recipient of the Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship Award of Liguria, Italy; a Mellon Foundation Grant, Hood Museum, Dartmouth College in 1998; and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, Bellagio, Italy in 1993. Recent solo exhibitions include the following: at 55 Mercer Gallery, New York; The Painting Center, New York; Widener Gallery, Trinity College, Hartford, CT. Recent group shows include 10th Annual Juried Show, Essex Art Center, Lawrence, MA; Edward Hopper Art Center, Nyack, NY; and Generations II, A.I.R. Galle