The Gilded Girls

Staff Exhibition | Suzy McGrane-Hop, Lauren Tucci & Linda Ge

Exhibit Dates: July 2- August 14, 2021
Artist Reception & 10 Year Anniversary Party: July 16th, 5:00-7:30pm

Exhibit Info & Statement

The Gilded Girls

July 2 - August 14, 2021
Staff Exhibition
Suzy McGrane-Hop, Lauren Tucci, & Linda Ge

To commemorate Gilded Pear’s 10th anniversary, the summer exhibition will be showcasing artworks made by gallery staff artists! Gilded Pear Gallery is thrilled be able to celebrate in person after gatherings had come to a halt due to the pandemic. Join in on the fun for the Party and Reception, July 16th, 5:00-7:30pm CST. Please RSVP!

The exhibit features drawings, paintings, and sculptures by Linda Ge, Suzy McGrane-Hop and Lauren Tucci. While the title of the exhibit references the popular TV show “The Golden Girls” the artworks on display pay little homage to the sitcom giant (though the ‘Girls’ themselves unite the artists).

Suzy McGrane-Hop, [owner] creates large, textural, moody abstract paintings for this exhibit. She says of the work, “I am inspired by colors in nature; it could be a spectacular sunset or storm clouds or just a muted gray sort of day. These new pieces are exploring thinly painted areas with soft muted colors and more relaxed brushwork, and contrasting areas of more intense colors and more active, “painterly” brushstrokes. My works borrow elements inspired by abstract expressionist as well as color field artists.”

Charcoal drawings and abstract sculptures from Linda Ge [gallery assistant and inventory manager] are achromatic observations of our basic anatomy echoed in nature: “I extract forms from my drawings and flesh them out in clay, firmly grounding their existence in our reality; the ceramic sculptures and vessels in turn act as three-dimensional canvases. In this sense, my drawings and ceramic pieces are extensions of one another rather than separate entities.”

Lauren Tucci [gallery director] investigates our everyday interactions in the form of household décor, furniture, and other objects. Colorful and monochrome ceramic sculptures and original prints narrate interpersonal conflicts and conditions with dark humor. “I love a film with fabulous set design. If you watch the movie without sound/captions or actors, you would be able to follow the tone of the story with just lighting and paying mind to the objects in scene. The work I create personifies these background characters, depicting, in a bizarre way, our human existence with one another.”

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Linda Ge

Biography
Linda Ge was born in Fort Collins, Colorado but has lived most of her life in Iowa. She received her BFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Iowa in 2012, and relocated to Colorado in 2014 to pursue a two-year post-baccalaureate program in Ceramics at the University of Colorado Boulder. She moved back to Iowa in 2016 for a residency at the Iowa Ceramics Center and Glass Studio.

Linda currently works as the Gallery Assistant and Inventory Manager at the Gilded Pear Gallery in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Statement
The sculptures and drawings I create are vague reflections of what we are familiar with. An essential subject I focus on is the human body. The body not only houses multiple micro- and macrocosms, but it in itself serves as a singular component in the complex structures of our world. By observing the anatomy and similar forms echoed in nature, I reduce these elements down to their most basic components, then reconstruct them back together. The results are often whimsical and uncanny.

My aim is to blur the lines between two-dimensional and three-dimensional pieces. I extract forms from my drawings and flesh them out in clay, firmly grounding their existence in our reality; the ceramic sculptures and vessels in turn act as three-dimensional canvases. In this sense, my drawings and ceramic pieces are extensions of one another rather than separate entities. As a whole, the processes I go through – extracting, deconstructing, and rebuilding – are ways for me to confront the things in life that fascinate me. Things that leave me confused and unsettled. Horrified and in awe. It is through confrontation with these elements that I am able to feel, not always and necessarily more comfortable, but more understanding of the peculiar.

Suzy McGrane-Hop

Biography
Suzy is the Owner of Gilded Pear Gallery, established in 2011, after 16 years previously working in the field at Pepper Tree Studios and CornerHouse Gallery. She earned her B.A. in Studio Arts with an emphasis in painting and printmaking at Coe College and has 20+ years of experience working in the fine art industry. In 2010, she earned her Certification as an Appraiser of Personal Property; the title only held by 36 (ISA) professionals in the country having a specialty in Fine Art.

Statement
Rain Dogs, Sun Dogs and Other Weather Phenomena

This series is about creating works coming out of a year of turbulent times; from more than a year of a pandemic ( – and is it even over yet?) and through a derecho that caused massive damage in this city. It has been more than a year of stress, feeling pushed beyond limits, and coming out of a series of very traumatic events. Some of these works have a feeling of hope, like a ray of sunlight peeking through storm clouds. In fact, many of these works are inspired by some very beautiful sunsets as a storm is passing through, and all of these works are rooted in nature.

The work titled, “Shroud: A Light from Within” is inspired by a stormy sunset as the sun just peeks out of the dark storm clouds. There is a moodiness to this work; the rain can be soothing and wrap around you like a blanket, but there is a ray of sunlight to bring hope after the storm passes. The work, “A Moment of Sun” is a brighter color palette with more sunny yellows, sunset peach, and rose tones in contrast to the stormy blues. This inspiration photo was taken from my back yard.

The works, “Rain Dogs” and “Sun Dogs”, also follow this theme. “Rain Dogs” is taken from a Tom Waits song and album of the same name, and the Urban Dictionary defines Rain Dogs as a ‘stranded dog left out in the rain and forgotten’ and ‘a person who is lost and can’t find their way’. Finding creativity during stressful times can be very hard, I just could not find the spark this past year, so this body of work has a lot of way-finding. The works, “Finding My Way” and “Weathering the Storm” are also a response to doing the work of trying to tap into the creativity and finding inspiration in what is around us - in this case, the skies above.

“Sun Dogs” and “Refracted Light” are also in this theme. Sun dogs are a winter weather phenomenon, when it is super cold sunlight hits the ice crystals and refract the light as a halo around the sun, the sun is usually close to the horizon. While these two works are not necessarily winter works, in any way, they are a bit brighter color palette than some of the other works.

Two outlier works are the diptych “Bleeding Hearts” and “Geode: Raw Turquoise and Copper”. “Bleeding Hearts” was intended as an entirely different work, but once this emerged and took root, there was no going back. It is loosely based on the bleeding heart flower, but also a take on the slang term of ‘giving into emotions easily’ and given this past year, my emotions are often quite raw. The heart-shaped object is weighted and suspended delicately by thins strings, giving a tension to the overall piece. The Geode work is part of an earlier series and the only works that was truly created during the pandemic. Inspired by a chunk of actual raw turquoise, I created a textured painting with semi-precious materials, such as diamond dust and mica powders for a geode like effect.

Lauren Tucci

Biography
Lauren Tucci’s works illustrate the artist’s captivation with hypnopompic hallucinations (semiconscious imagery immediately preceding waking up). Human, animal, and non-living objects become symbols in investigations about the self and microsociology. She is most interested in how individuals derive meaning from these amalgamations and what might be gathered from the collective unconscious.

Her works have been featured in various publications including Ceramics Monthly and have been exhibited nationally and internationally. She is the Gallery Director at Gilded Pear Gallery and her studio is located at the Iowa Ceramics Center and Glass Studio in the historic Cherry Building, where she previously attended as a resident artist. She received her Associates Degree in Art at the Community College of Allegheny County and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in Ceramics at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.

Statement
Inspired by artists of the Surrealist and Symbolist movements, my art originates from personal experience in connection to fictional universes. It stems from perceived realities in relation to how we derive meaning through everyday interpreted symbolism and subconscious thoughts rooted as deeply as one’s dream state. This body of work objectifies personal emotions and conditions in the form of recognizable imagery, sometimes disjunctive or mise en scène. Framed instances in installations become linked chaos, much like dreams in a non-linear narrative.

I create human and non-human fragments in delicate and callous themes to converse with our psyche, a reflection to conflict and relationships. Social status and contemporary themes of power and insecurities are illustrated without a demographic definition. I seek to remove conventional understandings of one’s self and explore a discussion about personality purely through the imagery we define as a community.