Spontaneous Repetition              

March 27th through May 29th, 2010

"Spontaneous Repetition” unites three Philadelphia artists who incorporate both quick, spontaneous, fleeting marks, and slow, labored, repetitive processes. Erin E. Castellan, Marie H. Elcin, and Colleen McCubbin Stepanic, create mixed-media works that resonate depth, emotion, and human existence. Through the combination of various processes, the images speak of time passing, and of time standing still.

As contemporary artists they break boundaries between art and craft, combining traditional methods in non-traditional ways. Erin E. Castellan starts with the immediacy of monoprints, creating intimate worlds and capturing the emotions of an instant. By working back into her prints with stitched and knotted thread, she builds texture, a deeper space, and a more prolonged experience with the image for both herself as the maker working in a process and for the viewer, who is caught by the intricacies of the surface.

The paintings of Colleen McCubbin Stepanic have many lives. Her work begins with great energy as color and line quickly grow on the canvas. She works on multiple pieces at a time and layers images upon previous paintings. She reins in this spontaneity by sacrificing her painted canvases to a process of cutting and sewing until they take on new life and dimension in forms reminiscent of those found in urban and natural environments. The viewer is entranced by the complexities of color and construction in these works that balance between 2- and 3-dimensions. Marie H. Elcin captures moments in time in a particular place by using photography, maps, and satellite imagery as her starting point. Her work incorporates found and printed fabrics, layered and densely stitched, turning the snapshot into a meditatively worked embroidery. Her images document places that undergo sometimes drastic change even within the time she plies her needle. One sees the evidence her hand and of time passing in the laborious and repetitive stitching.

Collen McCubbin Stepanic. Spiral. Acrylic and charcoal on canvas sewn 36" x 36", 2008

Marie H. Elcin captures moments in time in a particular place by using photography, maps, and satellite imagery as her starting point. Her work incorporates found and printed fabrics, layered and densely stitched, turning the snapshot into a meditatively worked embroidery. Her images document places that undergo sometimes drastic change even within the time she plies her needle. One sees the evidence her hand and of time passing in the laborious and repetitive stitching.

Marie E. Elcin. Berks and Girard. Embroidery on cotton, 3" x 4", 2008

In uniting the quick and instantaneous with the slow and laborious each artist sets up an interesting dichotomy. Each element highlights its opposite, creating both tension and beauty in the work. It is also the tension felt in our social environment where speed is required even as things take time to develop. Through thread, printmaking and paint these artists make an immediate connection to the audience. In recognizing handmade processes that take huge amounts of time to complete the viewer is granted the opportunity to slow down as well.

Click here to see more images for Spontaneous Repetition  or go to www.stepanic.net/spontaneousrepetition.html

(This is a curatorial proposal project)