May 2 - June 14, 2002

JILL BAROFF

Borrowed Scenery

Margarete Roeder Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Jill Baroff entitled Borrowed Scenery from from May 2 - June 14, 2002. A reception for the artist will be held on Thursday, May 2, from 6 - 8 PM. Jill Baroff will present two new works in her first solo exhibition at the gallery. An installation, executed in Gampi paper adhered directly to the wall, will reference the architecture of the gallery's space, it will be complemented by a floor work constructed from anodized aluminum. The wall work is a continuation of a series of Gampi paper drawings that Baroff has produced over the last ten years. The discrete, picture-like quality of those works has now been expanded in scale to form an installation that will address, referentially but not mimetically, the gallery's space and the directional light from the three large windows along the front wall. This wall work will be joined by a floor piece comprised of a dozen anodized corrugated aluminum discs. These discs, floating almost imperceptibly above the floor, are anodized in a single color of blue. As with the Gampi work, the light flooding from one side will accentuate the variations in the perceived appearance of the work according to its exact placement, the time of day it is viewed, and the position of the viewer. For several years Baroff has been spending time in Japan, investigating, documenting and using the specialist knowledge of papermakers, accumulated over centuries. Her first-hand knowledge of Japan and its culture is present in both the works. On an early visit to Japan Baroff was struck by the precise, refined, placement of the tatami mats in her room in Kyoto. Observing the delicate pattern of light on the weave she was fascinated to discover that the mats' pattern reversed itself when viewed from the opposite side. While the media of the wall installation more immediately brings to mind Japanese paper, or shoji screens, the floor work, less directly, but equally strongly, evokes Baroff's sensibility of observation. Baroff's work here insists on a certain perception, but not a particular response. Insistently evanescent, the works may be just as concerned with the phenomenology of perception as they are with eliciting a response. The non-congruent, clastic assembly of the sheets parallels our anachronistic, incongruent assembly of the experience of the works. As the shifting of material coalesces with the infixities of our experience, there emerges a variety of experiential conflation, between the spatial and the temporal. Baroff has exhibited internationally and is the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell Colony, and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. The present exhibition runs concurrently with two solo exhibitions in Germany: Scattered Light: Recent Drawings and Digital Skies at Gallery Krohn, Badenweiler, May 18 - July 3, and An Installation at the Marktkirche, Hannover, May 23 - May 31, 2002. For further information and photographs, please contact the gallery. TOP