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June 2009: Brent Fogt & Klimchak

Brent Fogt: Accrual Method

Brent Fogt will present a series of large-scale, highly detailed drawings of abstract forms and sculptural installations in his new exhibition Accrual Method, opening in Emory’s Visual Arts Gallery with a free reception on Thursday, June 18 from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. with an artist talk at 6:30 p.m. The exhibition will be on display until July 31, 2009. In his artist statement for this exhibition, Fogt writes that his work is characterized by the “amassing of small units to create abstract forms that vary from the topographic to the decorative.”

Fogt received an MFA from the University of Michigan in 2007.  He has exhibited throughout the world including The Dalton Gallery, Agnes Scott College, Atlanta, Georgia; Sonar Festival, Barcelona, Spain (with Blue Puddle cooperative); Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, Washington, DC; Contemporaine Kunst, Paramaribo, Surinam, South America; Spark Contemporary Art Space, Syracuse, New York; and the Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC. He has received numerous fellowships and awards, including a School of Art & Design Fellowship at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; a Teaching Assistantship at Duke University; and a full scholarship to Georgetown University.  He is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Millsaps College in Jackson, MS.

Mary Catherine Johnson of Emory’s Visual Arts Department was able to ask Fogt some questions about his new exhibition and his artistic process.

Q : What do you have planned for Accrual Method?
A: I will be showing a series of large-scale, highly detailed drawings and sculptures of abstract forms that vary from the topographic to the decorative, referring to, among other things, aerial photography, maps, turbulent water, live oak trees, coral reefs, ant farms, hives, nests, and paisleys.

Q : How have you adapted your work to the gallery space at Emory?
A: The exhibition will include a number of works that have been sized to hang from the gallery ceiling, including a sixteen-foot drawing based on an aerial view of the Mississippi River, a series of drawings inspired by the natural patterns I observed while teaching in Mexico, and by Chinese scroll painting. There is a beautiful skylight in the center of the gallery - I made sixty crocheted sculptures that will be suspended from that area. That part of the installation will be very labor intensive – it will likely take at least four days and many hands to complete – but I hope the result will be an effective use of the space.

Q : How do you develop your drawings?
A: I build my drawings by amassing small units. The ubiquity of circles appeals to me, as does the potential to read them as simultaneously microscopic and cosmic. Circles are also infinitely flexible, making it easy to lay one next to another in multiple directions. I begin with little or no idea what a drawing will eventually look like, but by limiting my range of choices to a specific kind and size of mark, I have enough information to proceed.

Q: The massive scale of your work will undoubtedly amaze and delight people who have only seen small images of your drawings. What dictates the size of your work?
A: I view many of my drawings as a series of fantastic places—islands or continents unoccupied by humans or animals. Those types of places naturally correlate to large-scale drawings; anything smaller would inhibit viewers from imagining their place within these worlds and from physically exploring their topography and pattern. The large sizes also allow viewers to have different experiences as they look at my work from various vantage points, both close and far. The shapes vary greatly depending on the viewer’s distance from the work.

Q: What other plans do you have for the summer besides your exhibition at Emory?
A: I’ll be doing some traveling and I’m also taking some time off from my day job at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, where I teach sculpture, digital arts, and painting, to take part in an artist residency program in Vermont.

For more information about Brent Fogt, visit his website at http://brentfogt.com.

Klimchak
2009 Loridans Arts Award Recipient

Klimchak, dance musician and composer in Emory’s Dance Program, is one of four winners of the 2009 Loridans Art Awards, “given to accomplished artists who have made exceptional contributions to the arts life of Atlanta, often outside the public limelight, over a long period of time.” The awardees receive the Loridans Arts Award Medal and $15,000 to spend at their discretion.

A regular composer for faculty and guest choreographers at Emory, Klimchak has played with bands as diverse as disco diva RuPaul and avant hipster Bruce Hampton. Klimchak owns and plays literally hundreds of instruments from an early electronic instrument like the sci-fi staple, the theremin, to a low-tech rawhide frame drum from the Middle East. He uses his knowledge of exotic instruments and the sounds they make in theater productions, especially with the Georgia Shakespeare Festival. He has written and performed scores for the plays: Othello, Henry IV, Hamlet, Tartuffe, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Cymbeline. In addition, his live score for No Exit at Le Neon Theater in Washington, DC was nominated for a Helen Hayes Award for best sound design.

Klimchak's dance work is equally important to his style and includes scores for Jane Comfort and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar of Urban Bush Women. He is also the Composer-in-Residence for GardenHouse Dance Company. His dance music has been performed most recently at Die Werkstatt in Dusseldorf, Die Brotfabrik in Bonn, and Bovenzaal Staddsschouwburg in Amsterdam.

For more information and to hear samples of his music, visit Klimchak’s Myspace page.

Edited by Jessica Moore
Communications Coordinator
Arts at Emory

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