March 3rd - April 15th 2023
Gallery Hours: 24/7
miniMAC (miniature Mount Airy Contemporary)
25 West Mt Airy Avenue, Philadelphia PA 19119
www.mountairycontemporary.com
miniMAC is pleased to announce Drawn, an exhibition of works by Sarah Morejohn and Zoë Cohen.
Both artists work abstractly and use repetitive marks. Sarah Morejohn enters into her abstraction from a place of wonder and ways to explore the gaps between what is known and what is felt. Zoe is approaching abstraction and repetitive marking to synthesize her interests in what is beyond the individual self, such as collective power, Jewish history, and landscape.
Morejohn writes of her work:
“My fascination of non-linear patterns in nature drives my work. I consider how our relationship to nature is mediated both by our objective understanding and our subjective imaging of it. I think of how wonder is important to our connection to the world.
In 2020 I began exploring drawing intuitively in a sketchbook. Drawing in this way, or really doodling, allowed me to go beyond trying to render or "copy" things I observe. It allowed me empathize and imagine a narrative or event that I wouldn't be able to witness otherwise. Bridging the gap between what I know and what I feel, making a drawing through doodling is a way to understand my imagined relationship to nature. Engaging in this mode of drawing lets small decisions and chance affect the outcome of my work.
After experiencing a historic blizzard, I began making drawings based on snow crystals and their intricate structures. Snowflakes are not symmetrical; they are smushed together or broken apart by the time they fall to the earth. Perfect snow crystals are rare. I learned this as I grappled with the grief of having chronic illnesses, and snow crystals became a metaphor for the body. A perfectly functioning body is equally rare. Flaws and mistakes became central to the drawings, as I embraced them rather than abandoning them.
[…] my interest in nature and looking spans years. Learning about nature is difficult in this time of endless ecological problems and drastic climate change. Looking deeply and being immersed in details decenters the self and becomes restorative. My work is a search for connection through wonder.”
Cohen describes her work as:
“[consisting] of improvisational drawing, on paper and on wood. I make complex process-driven images developed through an accumulation of marks and an inquisitive approach to materials. My approach to abstraction is drawn from the intersections of my affection for the landscape, of an embodied presence in the world, and of my experiences of the power of collective human activity. I employ layered mark-making, in drawing, carving, and burning, to create meaning through repetition.
I intend for these works to be responsive to the quiet rhythms of the inner life, while also retaining an expansive scale that refers to the monumental movements of human activism and of the natural world. I’m interested in an abstraction that is active and activated, and that contains entire worlds. I thrive on complexity and invite the viewer to find resonance in both the small moments and larger movements of my work. The worlds that my projects reflect are those of organizing for power in the workplace, of contemporary and historical Jewishness, and of spaces that resonate with the past and live in the present.”
Morejohn (https://www.sarahmorejohn.com) grew up in rural Oregon, and currently lives and works in Oakland, CA. In 2011 she earned a BFA in painting and drawing from the University of Oregon. Her intricate drawings are a part of numerous private collections, and in the permanent collections at Montefiore Medical Center (Bronx, NY), Physics Department at the University of Oregon (Eugene, OR), and Project Art & Medical Museum, University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics (Iowa City, IA). Her work has been exhibited at Empty Set Gallery (Bronx, NY), Kenise Barnes Fine Art (Larchmont, NY), Collar Works (Troy, NY), The Drawing Rooms (Jersey City, NJ), and Schema Projects (Brooklyn, NY). She was awarded an artist-in-residence at Lacawac Sanctuary and Biological Field Station (Lake Ariel, PA) and has been published in Superstition Review and Hyperallergic.
Cohen (https://zoecohen.com) was born in 1977 in Boston MA. She received her BA in Fine Arts from Haverford College and her MFA from Brooklyn College. At Brooklyn College, she was a leader of the MFA 2006 cohort who successfully fought the censorship of their MFA Thesis Exhibition by the City of New York.
Zoë's work has been presented in a variety of exhibition spaces including The National Museum of American Jewish History (PA), The Ely Center for Contemporary Art (CT), GoggleWorks (PA), Underdonk (NY), the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington (VA), The Abington Art Center (PA), Flux Factory (NYC), The Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art, The Painted Bride Art Center, and Arttransponder (Berlin), and is in the permanent collection of The Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art, The Philadelphia Cathedral, and the Museum of Art and Peace as well as private collections.
Zoë has taught as an Adjunct Instructor at Tyler School of Art at Temple University, Moore College of Art and The University of the Arts. Her Studio Residencies include The Vermont Studio Center, Philadelphia's 40th Street AIR program, and the Artist-in-Residence program at the Philadelphia Cathedral. Her studio practice is currently complemented by her work as a union organizer for higher education workers in the Philadelphia region. She lives in West Philadelphia with her two children.
miniMAC is a project of MAC (Mount Airy Contemporary). MAC has been curating shows in northwest Philadelphia since 2009.
