Of
Site and Sight
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| "Tapestry" (2019) |
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| "To lay your head on water" (2018) |
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| "Constellation Group" (2019) |
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| "Effigy" (2014) |
By
Tom Wachunas
“…Overall, I equate my process as one akin
to meditation rather than image making or craft. Repetition is employed to mark
time’s passing, and with it I build elaborate surfaces covered with minute hand
embellishment. In this private,
performative act of making I became a witness and a recorder.” - Danielle Rante
EXHIBIT: Double
Visions - solo exhibition featuring works by Danielle Rante / THROUGH OCTOBER 31, 2019 / at The
William J. and Pearl F. Lemmon Gallery, located in the Fine Arts Building on
the Kent State University at Stark campus / 6000 Frank Avenue NW, North Canton,
Ohio
Artist’s
Gallery Talk: Thursday, October 31, 11am Gallery
Hours: Monday-Thursday 11:00-6:00 pm,
Friday 11-5 pm
Hanging on the
walls in one corner of the gallery – an alcove, of sorts, tucked away from the
six large works on paper featured this exhibit – is a horizontal stretch of
unrolled graph paper marked with words, numbers, and colored sketches of
circles. Loosely pinned just above and below is an array of small photos of
terrains from around the world, along with various dried botanical specimens.
This seemingly
impromptu arrangement suggests a travel log, a navigational chart, or maybe a
bulletin-board journal of geographical sites visited and explored. As such, the
display is an inviting portal to appreciating the conceptual essence Danielle
Rante’s works on paper.
Double Visions indeed, these thoughtfully
wrought pieces show Rante to be an inquisitive voyager who transforms the material
nature of a place or surface into a poetic contemplation. Her colored pencil
drawings are hypnotic compositions, at once atmospheric and architectural,
straddling the material and the ethereal, and replete with delicate detail and
exquisite ornamentality. Even more
striking are her cyanotypes. To look at them is to be drawn into gorgeous,
undulating cyan fields to encounter sublime empyreal dramas, where tiny
earthbound floral and organic forms take on a galactic dimensionality. Like
star maps.
The cyanotype process (from the Greek word cyan, meaning “dark blue substance”) was
invented by the British scientist, Sir John Herschel, in 1842. Not requiring a
conventional darkroom or camera per se, images were produced by placing objects
directly on to photosensitive (chemically treated) paper and exposing it to
light to make what were then called “photograms.” The process was soon used to
make architectural documents which we know as blueprints. Interestingly, the botanist
Anna Atkins, considered to be the first female photographer, used the process to
make an album of collected algae specimens in 1843.
The notion of
collecting, examining, and savoring, both scientifically and aesthetically, is
a resonant presence in Rante’s cyanotypes. These configurations are made up of
multiple, identically-scaled units of paper, arranged in a way that brings to
mind the ground grids typically constructed for meticulous archaeological
excavations. In Rante’s explorations, the terrestrial merges with the
celestial. Our act of seeing becomes itself a spiritual exercise, a meditation.
Site becomes mesmerizing sight.
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