Buffalo Arts Studio is pleased to announce two solo exhibitions featuring the work of artists Tom Hughes and Beili Liu. A free public opening reception will be held at Buffalo Arts Studio on Saturday, January 23, 2010 from 7 to 10PM, with artist talks from 7 to 8PM. The exhibit will be available for viewing until March 6th.
Tom Hughes is a sculptor and installation artist living and working in Buffalo, NY. For his exhibition, Hughes will show two new text-based sculptures, The Shotgun Method and A Force of Nature. Composed of modest materials such as acrylic, particle board, and electric light fixtures, his hand-lettered light boxes serve as vehicles for complex inner thoughts. Hughes creates works that are both unabashed and cautious, shrewd and naïve, that reverberate with the familiar trials of coming of age, self discovery, and love.
Carefully crafted yet outwardly precarious, Hughes’ sculptures elegantly capture the nervous, awkward moments that make up our day-to-day interactions. Hughes elaborates, “Words are almost always my starting point; how everything hangs on them, how they establish relationships, how they occupy a space. Words fill up the room. They exist simultaneously in a realm of simplicity and one of dense complexity.”
Beili Liu is a Chinese-American artist currently based in Austin, TX. For her exhibition at BAS, Liu will present two works from her Lure Installation Series. Both are inspired by the ancient Chinese legend of the red thread, which tells that from birth, invisible red threads connect children to the ones they are fated to love. (Top image: Lure/River by Liu.) As time passes, the beings grow closer and ultimately find each other, bypassing social and cultural differences. Lure is comprised of thousands of disks each crafted from a single, tightly coiled red thread that is connected to another, forming a “couple.” Pierced with needles, the disks are suspended a few inches above the floor, allowing them to dance and mingle with the passing air currents. Bound was created by affixing numerous needles into two facing gallery walls to create silhouettes of a man and a woman. Red thread is inserted in each needle, joining the figures with thousands of lines across the gallery space. Over time, the weight of the thread causes it to sink toward the floor, though the couple withstands, remaining visible and connected.
Buffalo Arts Studio (BAS) is a not-for-profit arts organization whose mission is to provide affordable studio space and regular public exposure for regional, national, and international artists through exhibitions, and to enrich the community with art classes, mural programs, and public art. Exhibitions, public art projects, and classes help the studio serve as a cultural center.
For more information, please visit www.buffaloartsstudio.org.
Buffalo Arts Studio
2495 Main Street, Suite 500
Buffalo, New York 14214
(716) 833-4450 ext. 10
gallery@buffaloartsstudio.org
Gallery hours: Tuesday – Friday 11:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. and Saturday 11:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.