Polyphonous 2021:Mimetic Lives II
2-person concurrent Exhibition | Satomi Kawai & Jillian Moore
- Exhibit Dates: [extended] March 5 - June 26, 2021
- Virtual Reception with the artists: March 12th, @ 11:00am CST
- Instagram Live walk-through: March 8th, 5:30pm CST WATCH
- Reception: June 18th, 5:00-7:30pm *masks required*
Exhibit Info & Statement
Polyphonous 2021:Mimetic Lives II
March 5 - April 17, 2021
Extended until June 26th
2-Person Concurrent Exhibition
Satomi Kawai & Jillian Moore
Virtual Reception: March 12th, 2021
Extended until June 26th
2-Person Concurrent Exhibition
Satomi Kawai & Jillian Moore
Virtual Reception: March 12th, 2021
Polyphonous 2021:Mimetic Lives II
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Curatorial Statement
The collective, Polyphonous, was founded by Professor Jivan Astfalck, Rachel Darbourne and Laura Bradshaw-Heap, loosely grouped through connections at the School of Jewellery in Birmingham, England, but members are from multiple countries- including U.S. based artists Satomi Kawai and Jillian Moore. Established in 2018, Polyphonous was formed in collaboration with Studio Gabi Green in Munich’s West End with the intent to drive visitors to a localized hive during Munich Jewellery Week; one of many prominent features of the program. Both in the wake and the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 has offered the opportunity to safely connect with the most renowned European jewellery event from across the globe, online, and in print with Current Obsession. Artists and venues throughout the world unravel the dilemma to present significant and innovative displays of work in the field of contemporary jewelry at mass scale. This exhibition effectively serves as an in-person experience for the residents of the American Midwest and links virtually to other physical and virtual celebrations around the world. In 2006, Kawai and Moore exhibited “Mimetic of Life”, a display of graduate work from the University of Iowa’s Fine Arts program. That show, unknowingly, initiated a long-standing partnership of presenting work together. This marks a 15th anniversary for the two, in a way, and reunites them in an exclusively shared exhibition for the first time in more than a decade. “Mimetic Lives II” portrays the artists’ unique parallels in jewelry fashion form: earrings, brooches, rings and the like. Mimesis (meaning to mimic or imitate), is a perfect one-word summary of their creative inspirations and helps define the conversation between their work over the years. The individual lines of work stand alone with clear material polarity. They however borrow certain motifs inherent to their abstracted ideations rooted in biology and natural elements. Through our own physical reflection, we are presented with a flipped perspective on a familiar and known image. This type of mirroring can be observed in the paired styles of the artists’ works: glossy, amorphous, and prismatic; matte, achromatic, and structured. The same characteristics however remain integral and constant: repetitive pattern, arduous detail, and the uncanny attraction to something that looks memorable. Each artist pulls from natural wonders in our world to fabricate a small token for adornment. About the Artists
Satomi Kawai, born in Wakayama, Japan, is a contemporary visual artist who creates adornments, drawings, printings, and performances. She has been living in Iowa City, IA, USA since 1999, where she started academic art education and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Iowa in 2006. Kawai has been exhibiting her art nationally and internationally, including at SIERAAD (Amsterdam), JOYA (Barcelona), and Munich Jewelry Week. One of her rings is in a permanent collection by Alice and Louis Koch at the Swiss National Museum in Zürich.
Kawai carries minimalistic aesthetics, derived from Japanese traditional art practices: flower arrangement, tea ceremony, and calligraphy. She focuses on layers of personal femininity and environment to generate a response to the question “what does it mean to be a woman.” Integral to the process of discovering a true answer to the inquiry, Satomi invites comments from diverse communities to participate. All responses, personal and collected, inform her unique works. Jillian Moore is a full time artist and some time writer based in Iowa City, Iowa working primarily in the field of contemporary jewelry and small sculpture. Moore received a BFA in Metalsmithing and Jewelry Making from Western Illinois University in 2004, and an MFA in Jewelry and Metal Arts from the University of Iowa in 2008. Moore’s work has been exhibited in the US as well as abroad, most recently at Ombré Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio, Alliages in Lille, France, and Friends of Carlotta, in Zürich, Switzerland. Her work is inspired by forms in the natural world, bent by a bonkers sense of humor, and amplified by an interest in the fantastical. Operating with a background in metalsmithing and a foreground in experimental resins and other “new materials”, Moore's work is executed with the obsessive, monomaniacal approach of her craft discipline training tempered with a casual disregard for material or disciplinary hierarchies. Support provided by Governor Kim Reynolds and the Iowa Arts Council, a division of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, through the federal CARES Act-awarded to Jillian Moore
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Exhibit Images
video
KCCK Culture Crawl
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