Jaanika Peerna:The Edges of Light and Wind/solo exhibition

Jaanika Peerna:Edges of Wind and Light
exhibition at ARC Fine  Art

Opening reception  with dance and music performance on  Sept.18 6:30-8:30PM
(Jane Thornquist, dance and David Rothenberg along  with UmruX5, music)

@3113 Bronson Road, Fairfield, CT.
Open by  appt. only until Oct.13, contact 203 895 9595 or  arc@arcfineartllc.com

More info at  www.arcfineartllc.com

ARC Fine Art press release:
ARC Fine Art LLC is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition, Jaanika Peerna:  Edges of Wind and Light.  On view from September 18 to October 13, 2010, Edges of Wind and Light is the gallery’s first solo show of the work of Estonian-born artist Jaanika Peerna.  The opening reception, to be held on Saturday, September 18 at 6:30 pm, will include a dance performance by Jane Thornquist, who will explore the exhibited works through her own choreography.  Musicians David Rothenberg on clarinet and UmruX5 on laptop will enhance the dance with a sonic response.

The exhibition is comprised of wax crayon drawings on mylar, ranging from intimate, 5 x 5 inch squares to larger, more ambitious expressions measuring up to four feet on a side.  Regardless of scale, the group of drawings, identified by the titles: Air Dance Series and Maelstrom Series, are a response to the motions of air and wind.   An economy of line spontaneously, yet assuredly, echoes the swirling, energized forces of nature.  Peerna writes of these works, they are “mappings of air movement in nature registered by my senses. They chart quiet and tender winds but also storms that have the power to destroy. There is beauty in the extremes as well as a hint of anxiety. The works are very immediate responses to my sensory data and also reverberate on a bigger theme of changes in climate.”  The simplicity of black on white combined with an intense energy yields a rare profundity and beauty.

 In addition to the drawings on mylar, the exhibition will include a light installation, entitled Quiet Storm.  According to Peerna, this large scale, site specific work is a “3D  mapping of the  (trans)formative power of light. Specially programmed lights are cast onto hundreds of mylar strips attached to a wall.  The slowly changing light creates a feeling of an organism forever in formation. After longer viewing we get a premonition of storm in the shadow of the very slowly forming process.”

Also included is a video, entitled Lines of Light from 2009.  About this work, the artist writes, “I noticed a reflected light from a clear plastic folder on my wall. I discovered that if I move the plastic folder (mechanically) the reflection on the wall started taking new shapes. The shifting from one shape to another was pretty mesmerizing. I slightly altered the footage digitally to reveal the movement of light more clearly.  Low tech is something that has interested me always: creating something out of nothing as in this video where found reflection of light is turned into an artwork with it's own life and beauty. Music by Marilyn Crispell and David Rothenberg from One Dark Night I Left My Silent House (ECM Records, 2010).”

 In addition to the aforementioned video and installation, a floor video installation titled, Void from 2006-2010, will be on view.  Measuring approximately two feet in diameter, this installation invites the viewer to peek into the well-like window into the void, only to find an empty space flowing away from the gaze.