Intimate Distance

Intimate Distance

Intimate Distance

 

Functional Ceramics by Jenni Brant

Paintings by Kendra Bulgrin

Ceramic Sculpture by Mandi Salov

 

September 28-October 10, 2008

 

Art & Design Gallery

The University of Kansas

1467 Jayhawk Boulevard

Lawrence, KS 66045-3102

 

Raised in various parts of rural Wisconsin, Kendra Bulgrin, Jenni Brant and Mandi Salov met while studying fine art at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.  A small liberal arts college in Southeastern Wisconsin, Whitewater prepared these young women for defining themselves through their art.  Brant graduated from Whitewater in 2002, Salov followed in 2003 and Bulgrin in 2004.  All three women went onto graduate school at various institutions around the country.  Distant from one another yet still very much connected as they intimately supporting one another, these women stayed in touch and finished their masters degrees in 2007.

 

The title for the show Intimate Distance has resonance through each of the women’s work.  The work is not tied by style or medium but rather the concept that meanders through all of the work is Intimate Distance.  Intimacy can be felt in Brant’s ceramic vessels; alluring the viewer to touch the candy colored glazes and soft feminine contours yet remaining distant, removed from the home and perched on a pedestal. While Brant’s work asks to be touched and caressed Salov’s work beckons to the senses in a different way.  Her work sets up a series of personal metaphors that in their melancholy isolation request distance and require time for reflection after the initial moment of curiosity and closeness.  Bulgrin’s paintings are similar to Salov’s in the use of personal metaphorical language yet she uses the language in a different way, to share with the viewer a sense of a very large psychological distance at a miniature scale.    Each woman’s craft pushes concept in varying directions and with many layers, the idea of intimate distance is only one facet that all three women’s work occupies.