August 6 - September 2, 2020
Glyphs: Janet Goldner and Kiyoko Sakai
Prince’s Garden: Azita Ghafouri
On the Wall: Language: Liz Curtin
Carter Burden Gallery presents three new online exclusive exhibitions: Glyphs featuring Janet Goldner and Kiyoko Sakai; Prince’s Garden featuring Azita Ghafouri, and On the Wall: Language featuring Liz Curtin. The exhibitions run from August 6 - September 2, 2020 on our website and Artsy.net
Video of Glyphs
Video of Prince’s Garden
Video of On the Wall: Language
Janet Goldner
Master welder, Janet Goldner presents free standing and wall mounted steel sculptures in Glyphs her second exhibition with Carter Burden Gallery. While this exhibition highlights her steel sculptures, her work explores culture, identity and social justice in various media: steel sculpture, photography, video, installation and social projects. It consistently bridges diverse cultures, celebrating the unique beauty and genius of each as well as what we have in common. Goldner is at once an artist and researcher; her immersive fieldwork and annual visits to Mali provide her with inspiration. She writes, “Social projects internationally and in the US include participation with diverse groups of artists and non-artists. I engage in long-term collaborations, particularly with Malian artists. We are all, at the same time, researcher and object of research producing dialogues and concrete works of art.”
Born to a family of political activists, Janet Goldner grew up in the Washington, D.C. area. Over thirty years as an artist, Janet Goldner has shown her work in over twenty solo exhibitions, and over one hundred group exhibitions throughout the United States, as well as in Lithuania, Germany, Italy, Bosnia, Australia, New Zealand, and Mali. Her work has been published in many books, journals, magazines, catalogs and news sources. She is the recipient of numerous awards, grants, and artist residencies, including a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship and two Fulbright Senior Specialist grants, enabling her to return to West Africa. During her concentrated eight months of research and working in Mali with potters, metal smiths, and contemporary artists, many of Goldner’s African experiences began to coalesce and emerge in her work. As a result of these experiences, she combines Western and non-Western images and ideas, issues of cultural identity, and responses to her own layered American cultural identity.
Kiyoko Sakai
Glyphs features the mixed media paintings of Kiyoko Sakai. Her paintings link both the dynamic scale of American Abstract Expressionist’s and the awareness of line in traditional Japanese art. The lines express music, rhythm and dance to create imaginary spaces and to express her inner world. Sakai follows her instinct and intuition with imagination of the territory beyond human understanding. She explains, “In creating art, my imagination, inspiration, and a kind of magic work together toward the completion of a piece. I discover aesthetic truths that convey awe, mystery and the invincible beauty of the human spirit. Music to the ear, poetry to the heart is to be felt. Feathers and wings, and imaginary cosmos appear in my work as my longing toward the higher realm.”
Kiyoko Sakai was born and educated in Japan. After moving to the United States, Sakai took art courses at the Art Students League and the School of Visual Arts in New York. Sakai has exhibited her work internationally and throughout the United States. Her solo exhibitions include: Fujiya Gallery in Tokyo, Japan; Gallery G2 in Tokyo, Japan; Johnson & Johnson World Headquarters in New Jersey; Kanner-Kurzon Museum in New Rochelle, New York; and MyungSook Lee Gallery in New York City. Her group exhibitions include: Cultural Center of the Embassy of Japan, Mt. Fuji Exhibition in Brussels, Belgium; Newark Museum “Artists’ Night” in New Jersey; and Instituto Superiore per Industrie Artistiche in Urbino, Italy.
Azita Ghafouri
Azita Ghafouri presents her series Prince’s Garden in a solo exhibition at Carter Burden Gallery. The pieces are mixed media on collaged paper, depicting abstracted floral and architectural elements with energetic brushstrokes. This series is inspired by a story of a beautiful and ancient garden in the middle of the Persian desert. It has been told that while it was being built the prince ordered that any laborer who did not work hard enough would be buried alive into the walls of the garden as a lesson to the others.
Azita Ghafouri was born in Iran to Russian parents. She received her Master’s Degree in Urban Planning and Architecture from Tehran University. Ghafouri has balanced her professional work as an architect with her passion for painting for over four decades. She has exhibited her work widely throughout the United States and internationally. Exhibition highlights include: Azad Gallery in 1971, 1972, 1973; Takht-Jamshid Gallery in Tehran in 1975; Goethe Institute in 1976; Numpkin Gallery in San Diego in 1979; and the Museum of Balboa Park in San Diego in 1980.
Liz Curtin
Liz Curtin’s large-scale installation in On the Wall features four large unstretched canvases in her series Language, which represent dementia, the mind, language and losing both. This very personal installation illustrates Curtin’s experience with her mother’s battle with dementia. Driven by process, the dripping and scribble imagery emerged from her subconscious, and became more chaotic as she worked. The shapes mimic how Curtin’s own mother lost her ability to communicate clearly with language. Curtin elaborates, “They became Language that I was trying to express, that Mom was trying to express, that all dementia and Alzheimer's people are trying to get out but can't. The four panels are the deterioration of the mind. The sad, slow process of losing your ability to speak and function normally. I dedicate this series to the memory of my mother, Carol Grant Smith.”
Liz Curtin was born in the Bronx in 1953 and raised on Long Island. Primarily self-taught, Curtin attended Montclair College in New Jersey and studied textiles and papermaking. Curtin currently works in many mediums including painting, mixed media, collage, found object sculpture, press-free printmaking, stitching, artist books and handmade paper. She is always eager to learn new techniques and skills that translate into finished artworks. Curtin has had fourteen one-person shows including three at Franklin 54 Gallery and several at the Carter Burden Gallery. She has also been in numerous group shows. She had a found object sculpture juried into Transformations East, at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, MA, curated by Lloyd Herman, founding Director of The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum. Her work and essay was included in the show catalog. Curtin’s work was published in Fiberarts Design Book 4. Her work is in many collections in the U.S. and abroad. Curtin is also a singer songwriter and a teaching artist at several senior centers in NYC.
Installation Views
