ModernFormations: Art Gallery. Performance Space.

Aimee Manion and Sebastian van Gorder have been Creating together for over half of a decade. Their work is both playful and searingly resolute. A melding of the abstract and the tangible, their imagery explores the wonders and mysteries of Creation.

By constructing captivating vistas of movement and provocative color overlaid with suggestive forms and figures, they aim to incite viewers to inquire within themselves about their own existence, about the unknown and the ineffable.

Drawing inspiration from science texts, headline news and everything in between, Aimee and Sebastian commit layer after layer to the canvas (or, rather, wood, paper, glass and drafting film). Each additional layer obscures the previous layers, much the way that our origins and the origins of the universe are cloaked in unending potential for discovery and question. Nothing is obvious. Nothing is intended to be interpreted in a particular way. No object or artwork is assigned a meaning.

As each piece develops, its meaning undergoes a constant metamorphosis, absorbing energy and ideas from two Beings and combining them into a single artifact that can be can be pondered endlessly.

Sebastian holds a degree in Biochemistry; Aimee in Fine Art with a minor in Anthropology. As the universe draws on all available resources to create, so does this Pair. Creation has filled a void in space. Aimee and Sebastian aim to fill a void as well. The viewer needs to bring their own void.

http://aimeemanion.com/

Opening Reception November 7th

Opening Reception December 5th

2008 Grand Prize Winner of Modernformations Annual Spring Salon - Kathryn Cole

Kathryn says: “Bits and Pieces of a Place”, is the working title of my first solo show opening at ModernFormations in December. The body of work will be an investigation into the qualities of the city I have been calling home for the last year.

After living in Pittsburgh six months or so the city began to creep into my work. First it was just the color palette of dusty blues and grays, then the endless days of clouds, and now it’s the houses that stack up the side of her many hills. .

I spend hours roaming the streets looking for little metal cast-offs and bits to be reincarnated in my impressions of the city. As a metal smith, I feel a unique bond to this “Steel City”. Each little metal scrap I find seems to have so much more importance because of where I have found it. Weather is it a crushed can or a part fallen off a truck, all of these bits are part of what Pittsburgh is. Perhaps using parts of this city will help me define it…