Wholeness as Sanctuary: Art by Amy Komarnicki
The Green Dress
From February 1 through April 30, 2010, the Barn at Pendle Hill will be the setting for an exhibition of woodcut prints, painting, etchings, pencil sketches, costume, and handmade books by Amy Komarnicki. The exhibition explores the fragmented relationship between oneself and one's environment, and is titled Wholeness as Sanctuary.
About the Exhibition
Retreat from Chaos, acrylic, wax, and ink on canvas
The First Set
Ms. Komarnicki divides the exhibition into three related sets. The pieces in the first set represent rather starkly the distinction between oneself and the natural chaos of one’s environment. The protagonists of each experience varying degrees of success in creating a boundary between them and the world, often finding themselves warped or fractured in this struggle. Chaotic nature is depicted as spindly branches, uneven texture, and either viscous shadows or fiery, violent color. Cool and muted colors indicate respite or sanctuary within the piece. Often the conflict is “contained” by the margins of the canvas.
Extract from Mexico City, handmade book with woodcut prints
The Second Set
In the second set, the conflict is expressed with familiar forms. The nudes show the harmony of complexity and simplicity in the human body. Newsprint and type are shown as incomplete attempts at sharing truth, themselves boundaries between first- and secondhand experience. As windows, it is the space between the lines through which light is able to pass. The artist begins here to imagine books as representations of discovery, as meaning is transformed with each page. ‘Mexico City’ uses juxtaposition and form to impart a message that is gradually discovered by the reader.
When You Are Old, handmade book
The Third Set
The handmade books invite the beholder into a tangible relationship with the artist. In tampering with a simple, complete form – Art, as it were – we are able to unfold layers of complexity, literally splaying out the pieces of what was once whole. We then encounter the imaginative seed – a taproot that connects the artist to the rest of us – and in this discovered context we behold a fuller, more meaningful synthesis. This captures the creative process, from inspiration to presentation, in its movement from simplicity to complexity and to wholeness.
About the Artist
A local artist and seamstress, Amy Komarnicki received a B.A. in Visual Arts from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. As a mother of a four year-old, she appreciates finding moments of respite in the midst of chaos through creating art. The pieces exhibited here represent ten years of work.