Margo Sawyer: Synchronicity of Color

Holly Johnson Gallery in Dallas is pleased to announce the opening of Synchronicity of Color, by sculptor Margo Sawyer. An opening reception for the artist will be held Saturday, June 21, from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. The exhibition continues through Saturday, August 16, 2008.

Throughout her career, Sawyer has created sculptural installations which translate sacred spaces into a contemporary vocabulary. Synchronicity of Color continues this exploration between color, light, and architecture that suggest underlying patterns and a conceptual framework. For this exhibition the artist has chosen an array of brilliant paint colors for these new aluminum box panels. Also featured is a new installation responding to the gallery’s architecture.

Sawyer often equates the work as a quilt of color, responding to the unexpected color compositions, the multi-cultural and gender associations as in the Gee’s Bend quilts, the symbolic use of form and color of the De Stijl movement, and the work of Piet Mondrian. Don Bacigalupi, Ph.D., Director of the Toledo Art Museum in Ohio, referenced Sawyer’s work in 1999, "Perhaps Mondrian comes closest to providing a precedent…think of Broadway Boogie Woogie and the way in which its composition has been read as a jazzy improvisation of a New York City streetscape, seen from above."

Earlier this year, Sawyer completed two large-scale, outdoor sculptural installations entitled Synchronicity of Color – Red and Blue at Discovery Green, a new 12 acre park in downtown Houston, and in 2007 she created an outdoor installation using fused glass, stone, steel, light, and landscaping for Whole Foods World Headquarters in downtown Austin, as well as a permanent site-specific installation at the Residences Tower in One Arts Plaza in the Dallas Arts District.

Sawyer was born in the United States, although she spent the majority of her early years in England.  She received her M.F.A. from Yale University and her B.A. Honors degree from Chelsea School of Art in London. She currently lives and works outside Austin and has been a Professor of Art at the University of Texas since 1988.

The artist has also been a recipient of numerous grants, fellowships, and awards, including from Fulbright-Hays Research Grant to India, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, The American Academy in Rome, National Endowment for the Arts Grant, New York State Council for the Arts Grant for Public Art, Travel Grants Fund For Artists - a joint project through the National Endowment for the Arts and Arts International, Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship to Japan, Japan Foundation Visual Arts Fellowship, and Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation.  The artist previously exhibited with the gallery in 2005 and has also exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, New Haven, Houston, Austin, the United Kingdom, Italy, India, Spain, Germany, and Japan.