PRESS RELEASE
Margo Sawyer: Cloud of Unknowing
Sep 17 – Oct 15, 2005
Holly Johnson Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of, MARGO SAWYER: Cloud of Unknowing, a new site-specific installation in two parts. A reception for the artist will be held on Saturday, September 17, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. coinciding with the Dallas Art Dealers Association’s Fall Gallery Walk. The exhibition continues through October 15, 2005.
Creating a mysterious field and sky space, Margo Sawyer has employed the modernist grid and a language of pure form in an attempt to transform the physical environment of the viewer within the confines of the gallery. Inspired by the book of contemplation titled “The Cloud of Unknowing,” Sawyer places us within an environment familiar in its links to early modernism, making reference to the abstractions of Piet Mondrian and the non-hierarchical structures of Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt). Inspired by contemplative traditions, Sawyer asks us to confront the here and now with an intuitive arrangement of forms seemingly of the moment. According to Sawyer,
“Throughout my career, I have devoted much time to the observations of the major historic and contemporary sites of sacred architecture. I am particularly interested in how the relationships between space and transcendence functions, where architecture and ritual converge in creating installations that instill contemplation. In the past number of years, my work has revealed a commitment to creating spaces that focus on an equivocal nature of space, where installation art, architecture, and time converge.”
The artist was born in the United States and brought up in England. She studied at the Brighton Polytechnic Faculty of Art and Design and received a B.A. Honors Degree from Chelsea School of Art in London. Her interest in contemporary American art led her back to the U.S. where she received an M.F.A. from Yale University in 1982. She currently lives and works outside Austin and has been a Professor of Art at the University of Texas since 1988.
Margo Sawyer has had recent solo exhibitions at The Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, Blaffer Art Gallery at the University of Houston, ArtPace in San Antonio, Austin Museum of Art in Austin, and Sagacho Exhibit Space in Tokyo. The artist has also been a recipient of numerous grants, fellowships, and awards from Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Fulbright-Hays Research Grant to India, 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.
Holly Johnson Gallery is located in the Dallas Design District at 1411 Dragon Street near the intersection of Cole. Gallery Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. For more information please call 214-369-0169, or email info@hollyjohnsongallery.com, or visit the gallery website at www.hollyjohnsongallery.com.