Celebrated in sculptHER at the Ann Norton Sculpture Garden are Julia Ibbini (UAE), Cha Jong Rye (South Korea), Miriam Londoño (Colombia), and Nicole Pietrantoni (Prague/USA). Each artist creates in either paper or wood, though these are no "ordinary" manifestations of either medium. Here, sculpted at the hands of Ms. Cha Jong Rye, wood appears to flow like water, and Nicole Pietrantoni transforms paper into an intimate installation. Miriam Londoño's handmade paper tells stories through its shapes; Julia Ibbini's works in paper and wood alike are a beautiful collision of history, architecture, and design.
Whether presented on a wall or a pedestal, each of these artists has applied her creative genius to her practice, creating works that turn upend expectations of what paper and wood "can possibly be".
Julia Ibbini
Julia Ibbini works predominantly with materials such as archival paper, veneer woods, or mother of pearl—selected for their delicate, tactile qualities—that are then layered and meshed together using a complex collaging method. Studio Ibbini traverses analog and digital to create works of extreme intricacy and machined precision, but which remain distinctly human in origin.
Nicole Pietrantoni
Pietrantoni’s installations, artists’ books, and works on paper explore the complex relationship between human beings and nature. Born in 1981, she is the recipient of numerous awards including a Fulbright Grant to Iceland, an Artist Trust Fellowship, a Larry Sommers Printmaking Fellowship, a Leifur Eiríksson Foundation Grant, the Manifest Prize, and a Graves Award for Excellence in Humanities Research and Teaching.
Miriam Londoño
As a subject matter, Londoño explores migration, communication, and social exclusion, focusing on how traumatic experiences can cause identity crises and cracks in memories. Reflecting on her personal experience as a migrant, she became interested in language and communication, producing an artistic body of work that visually focuses on written texts.
Cha Jong Rye
Using wood as her chosen medium, Cha Jong Rye constructs seamlessly intricate wooden landscapes through her often wall-mounted sculptures. Sanding and layering hundreds of delicate wood boards, her process is intentionally unintentional; rather than executing a predetermined design, she allows herself to discover images in the fluidity of arranging and rearranging the uniquely hand-shaped blocks.