ROBIN REYNOLDS

solo show at CUSP GALLERY, Provincetown

Featured the work of sculptor Julia C R Gray | Southern California

Opened Saturday, May 28th

— and ran for 2 weeks—

Closing on Sunday, June 12, 2022 at CUSP Gallery in Provincetown, MA.

Co-Curated by Curtis Speer, Michelle May and Payal Thiffault

Robin Reynolds is a contemporary plein air painter who draws her inspiration from her backyard garden. She is concerned with the dichotomy that exists between abstraction and representation widely focusing on color, layering and mark making to achieve her vibrant paintings.

As an artist that is conditionally inspired by nature and the outdoor environment, Robin embraces the notion of wild beauty and creates luminous, lush, layered surfaces strictly outdoors in the garden, from spring to fall. She paints and finds inspiration watching the full lifecycle of nature, from sprout to withering specimen. The flowers and plants act as a catalyst, allowing her to manipulate paint and create a dance between abstraction and representation.  Instead of depicting a time-anchored botanical or geographical exactitude, Reynolds works  in  a  series  of  three  to  seven  sittings  welcoming  weather  and  the  passage  of days to transform her viewpoint. The garden serves solely as a guide for her organic process within her outside studio.

Reynolds has shown extensively throughout New England, New York and in Santa Fe in various one person and group shows. She has also won numerous awards, grants and residencies which include a Mass Cultural Council award and attending the Millay Colony, Vermont Studio School and Dorland Mountain Arts Colony. Reynolds earned her MFA from Savannah College of Art & Design, and a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and a BA from Colby College. She is represented by Soprafina Gallery , Boston, MA and Cynthia Winings Gallery in Blue Hill, ME. Reynolds presently lives and works in North Brookfield, MA with her husband and three daughters.

Juniper Rag artists were all invited to submit to this exclusive call for art.

Robin Reynolds, was an absolute stand-out and the unanimous choice for all 3 curators.

Curation was difficult, with so many incredible artists. It is Women’s Weekend in P’town, and this artist’s sculptures could not be ignored for inclusion…

We welcome featured artist, Julia C R Gray

with SHE: The Power of Protest

Artist Statement: My ceramic sculpture series SHE Sea Wisdom portrays women’s torsos attached to a base of coral inspired forms. Growth and loss are alive within the sculpture’s rich layers of glazed clay texture. Real gold luster dots symbolize seeds of new coral growth. The bodies’ opalescent forms speak to the preciousness of life, while the fractured surface is a language of wisdom and experience which humans must embrace to protect the new life in our coastal seas. My hope for positive human intervention has been challenged with the recent Long Beach, California oil spill. I am finding tar on our local San Diego, Cardiff Beach. I cannot ignore this experience or my feelings of alarm. Pouring thick black glaze over these precious sculptures pushes my normal art practice and depicts my horror. We humans need to take responsibility for our impact on the world. Coastal seas account for 7% of our ocean, yet they are responsible for 95% of the world's marine production - these are our planet's fishing grounds, the seeds for the majority of sea life. Despite their importance to humanity, few coastal seas are protected. I’ve included images of one torso with tar (black glaze) and the other torso created before finding tar on our beach.

I live and work in Cardiff by the Sea, California, sculpting daily in my home ceramic studio. I use the female torso as the form to talk about contemporary subjects that have meaning for me. I also have a regular ritual of walking the beach at sunrise and photographing seaweed. Over the past seven years I have kept these two creative practices separate. After completing a series of 55 female torsos, an installation titled SHE: The Power of Protest, I realized I still had so much more to say with these particular forms. It was time to incorporate my love of the ocean with my favorite torso form. I feel vital connections between the ocean and our female bodies, our strength, our vulnerabilities and the ability to birth life.

My new series SHE Sea Wisdom is evolving, four of the twelve now have the contrasting black clay slip and glaze that depicts tar poured over the precious coral and female bodies. I feel a tingling in my fingertips, telling me the creative process has more to say and these torsos are the form to interpret the changing narrative. Materials & process: I use Cone 5 ceramic slip to cast the female torsos (I cast my own plaster molds), and cone 5 stoneware clay coils to build the bases and coral forms. The hand-built base structure is joined to the torso forms. Brushed slip over lace (then removed) adds patterned texture to the unfired sculpture. I sculpt multiple coral inspired shapes for the final building process. The sculptures are bisque fired, glaze painted and then fired twice, first cone 5 oxides and matte, satin, gloss glazes, and lastly kiln fired cone 019 opalescent and real gold luster overglazes.