Hilary Lorenz to Show in Wave Hill’s Sunroom Project Space, October 18–December 7, 2014
Inspired by the passage of the human body through geographic space, Hilary Lorenz translates hikes in remote landscapes into visual imagery. Her prints, drawings and enveloping installations, grounded in traditions of performance walking, are fundamentally shaped by experiencing long-distance runs and mountain ascents. Her drawings and prints visually map a specific location, providing abstract time-lines that mark a spatial journey of memory and change. As the artist describes, “When I am carving a linoleum block or applying watercolor to paper, a single knife-cut or brushstroke is like reliving each step that I walked or ran.” Even the act of operating a manual printing press recalls her passion for simple physical repetition.
For the Sunroom Project Space, Lorenz continues her series Nomadic Geographies, which stems from an intensive walking exploration of the Wave Hill grounds and of Harriman State Park about 30 miles north. The room-size environment consists of linoleum-block prints cut and collaged directly on the wall to form a 10-foot mountain. Because the work documents her experiences, the artist is careful to portray only mountains that she has hiked or climbed. In addition, 4,000 printed-paper ivy leaves adhere to and wrap around three walls of the gallery space, recalling the vines that cling to the exterior walls of the Sunroom and creep around its windows. The installation also includes an eight-foot ink drawing of a lean-to (three-sided shed), commonly found in New York State parks, including Harriman. The drawing serves as a record of Lorenz’s treks even as it simultaneously evokes a wilderness fantasy with roaring bears and meandering coyotes. In this way, Nomadic Geographies represents a longing for rural, quiet moments in the big, bustling city.
Lorenz received an MA and MFA in printmaking and multi-media from the University of Iowa, a BS in painting from Western Michigan University and an MS in exercise science, physiology and nutrition from Long Island University. She has had solo exhibitions at Muriel Guépin Gallery, Safe-T-Gallery and ARAMONA Gallery, all in New York City. Selected group exhibitions include shows at Corridor Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Santa Fe Art Institute; Taiwan Museum of Art, Taichung; and Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, NJ. Lorenz has participated in numerous artist residencies, including ARTS Tasmania International; Frans Masereel Centrum, Kasterlee, Belgium; National Seashore C-Scape Residency for Art, Provincetown, MA; Lower East Side Printshop, New York, NY; Manhattan Graphics; and Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, New York, NY. She is an Associate Professor in printmaking and digital media and Chairman of the Visual Arts Department at Long Island University. [www.hilarylorenz.com]
Organized by Curator of Visual Arts Gabriel de Guzman, the Sunroom Project Space provides an opportunity for New York-area emerging artists to develop a special project or site-specific work to exhibit in a solo show. The artists participating in the 2014 season are, consecutively, Brandon Neubauer, Kristyna and Marek Milde, Reade Bryan, Lauren Carly Shaw, Tammy Nguyen, Alexandra Phillips and Hilary Lorenz.
The Sunroom Project Space is supported in part by the Milton & Sally Avery Arts Foundation. Additional support for the Visual Arts is provided by the New York Community Trust; the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; and by the Cathy and Stephen Weinroth Commissioning Fund for the Arts. The Institution’s operations are made possible in part by public funds provided through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
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