Leonard Pearlstein Gallery Announces New Fall Exhibition: ‘Warp + Weft’ – Work by Caroline Lathan-Stiefel

 

Drexel University’s Leonard Pearlstein Gallery will present a new solo exhibition of installation, sculpture and drawings by 2015 Pew Fellow in the Arts Caroline Lathan-Stiefel. The fall exhibit will run from Sept.20 through Dec. 4 – with the opening reception taking place on Friday, Sept. 23, from 5-7 p.m.

Lathan-Stiefel, is known for her expansive and delicate pieces that utilize everyday materials, turning them into seemingly weightless, wonderful objects. For this exhibition, she expands her media to include metal casting and neon. The colorful pieces hint at language and biological forms, creating an undeniable humanness just beyond their abstraction. 

"Since 2001, I have been making large-scale sculptural installation consisting of fabric, pipe cleaners, wire, string, plastic, thread and fishing weights that have been show in gallery, museum and outdoor spaces" Lathan-Stiefel says. "The installations are drawings-in-space that cover, divide, encircle, and fill the spaces in which they are situated. My work involves both the slow, plodding movement of patching and sewing pieces of cloth and plastic to linear structures made of pipe cleaners, as well as quicker, more gestural actions that connect all of the parts into systems, making large suspended sculptures." 

Lathan-Stiefel's recurring cellular forms are partially based on the rhizomatic networks of the brain. This imagery was provoked in response to an episode of encephalitis suffered by her father in 2012. She continues to explore the brain, especially the areas of speech and language. Using layers of cellular and calligraphic shapes, Lathan-Stiefel's constructions create opportunities to linger in minutia while basking in their vastness. The exuberance of the sculptures belies the delicate handcraft and attention demanded in their creation. Lathan-Stiefel is able to create beautiful work from a potentially devastating subject matter. 

To learn more about Caroline Lathan-Stiefel and the fall exhibition Warp + Weft visit http://drexel.edu/pearlsteingallery/exhibitions-events/upcoming-exhibitions/