the work of Irene Kopelman
original images from the volcanic area studied by Kopelman
installation views below - materials used: clay, pigment - methods: relief sculptures, floor works
The Levy's Flight
2009
Installation
variable dimensions
The Levy’s Flight is an installation, which took form after a research visit to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in October 2008. During her visit she realized a series of drawings, sketches for a series of sculptures and a huge number of photographs. In the studio the material underwent a series of conceptual filters, till it reached the form in which it was presented. Al the pieces attempt to trace back something of the landscape in an almost romantic attempt to comprehend it. This strategy recalls the travellers from past centuries in their attempt to represent, organize and bring back to their homeland discoveries made of far away territories.
The Puzzle Piece departs from the tracing of a fragment of the volcanic surface, where the lava is older and therefore cracks and breaks.
The Reliefs reference fragments of crusts which stick out from the usually flat volcanic formations.
http://www.motivegallery.nl/?page_id=6826
coming soon exhibtion below/london
The Challenger's Report
10 February 2012 - 15 April 2012
Gasworks
155 Vauxhall Street
London SE11 5RH
Kopelman's work is rooted in drawing in situ and guided by laboured processes of copying and re-production which reveal a fascination with landscape and the act of looking. Borrowing patterns from nature or techniques of observation and classification from the history of science, her drawing, painting and sculpture is characterised by imperfections that foreground the conditions (cramped, dusty, rainy, etc.) of its making. Inspired by the expeditions of renowned explorers such as Ernest Shackleton, her work is founded upon empirical research carried out in the field or in naturalist archives and collections.
The Challenger's Report centres on how acts of looking are mediated by culture, invention or circumstance. The title refers to the Challenger expedition of 1872-76, the discoveries of which laid the foundations of modern oceanography. The exhibition includes a newly commissioned series of large-scale paintings of microfossils brought back from the Antarctic plate following Robert Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova expedition of 1910, and now held at the Natural History Museum in London. These are presented alongside: La morfologia del paisaje determina sus vistas (The Morphology of the Landscape Determines its Views, 2011), an installation composed of drawings and a fired clay bas relief of canyons in Southern Brazil; and a hand-made replica of a graphic telescope, an early 19th century optical instrument. Kopelman has worked with outdated curiosities such as this for a number of years, keen to rediscover how they gave rise to particular conventions of seeing and ways of interpreting the natural world.
The exhibition is accompanied by a series of events and workshops taking place at Gasworks and at the Natural History Museum, London.
Irene Kopelman's recent exhibitions include: the 8th Mercosul biennial; 50 Metres Distance Or More, Labor Gallery, Mexico DF (2011), El Vuelo de Levy (The Levy's Flight), Montehermoso Art Centre, Vitoria-Gasteiz SP (2009), and an installation at Outline, Amsterdam, NL (2008).
http://www.gasworks.org.uk/exhibitions/detail.php?id=721
