Sarah Whorf Exhibition

Work by my former student Sarah Whorf is currently gracing the walls of the Knight Gallery, near where she works, lives & whittles in beautiful Eureka, California. Sponsored by the Humboldt Arts Council, the exhibition will run until 10/9/2011. The gallery address is: Knight Gallery, Morris Graves Museum of Art, 636 F Street, Eureka. The hours are Thurs. - Sun., noon - 5 PM, the phone # is: 707/442-0278, & the organization's URL: www.humboldtarts.org

Her symmetrical image repro'ed here is a woodcut, titled: Advanced Hunter Gatherers, & visually it works equally well in either vertical orientation. Seemingly playful & innocent, her aquatic floral image belies the war mongering/whale harpooning/slave trading nature of the two mirrored ships, sailing around the earth's gentle curve. The subtle shift in color helps us perceive the ephemeral nature of time & the ever shifting briney deep. Skillful changes in mark-making in the background establishes varied weather conditions & time of day, helping to create the illusion that these floating vessels are easy prey for varied nautical forces.

I include below the quote from the "Humboldt Beacon," which hopefully further serves to provide the audience Sarah so richly deserves. (If you happen up that way, don't forget breakfast at the Samoa Cookhouse, which - despite it's name, serves up basic American fare.)

"New work of Sarah Whorf is on display in the Knight Gallery. As a printmaker, Whorf works primarily with the medium of woodcuts, and is currently working on a series which address her conceptual interest in connectedness and attraction. Depicting abstracted objects which are linked together to form mixtures that reference chandeliers, candelabras and fishing gear, she employs depictions of common objects to function symbolically, moving beyond their obvious function and serving as metaphor in a personal narrative."