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Bolts & Stitches – Peggy Blei and Gene Hracho
March 12 – April 13
Opening Reception: March 16th, 7-9pm
Artist Talk: April 13, 1230-130pm
Aquatic in Nature – Gene Hracho
Mrs. Lester’s Pool – Peggy Blei
Ridem – Gene Hracho
Never The Less, She Persisted – Peggy Blei
While, at first glance, their work may appear to be wildly different, the many parallels between Peggy’s and Gene’s work become evident during closer inspection.
Each artist pieces together complex works from a variety of new and repurposed materials. Each of the resulting works is constructed with a density of details that reward the viewer with more to experience the longer they spend with the work.
Peggy and Gene have been together for more than 30 years, having met while they were studying at the Atlanta College of Art. They keep separate studios in the home that they share with their two daughters. They often working simultaneously, listening to the sounds of each other’s process through the floorboards that separate them.
Peggy’s work with cloth and stitch employs the sewing machine as both a construction tool and a drawing tool. Images of women are central in her narrative series dealing with themes of memory, current happenings, and portraiture. Gene’s sculpture is built upon narratives, some recounted and some imagined, for which the physical works become relics. Sometimes, the scars of the previous lives of the materials that are curated into the work become the lines with which Gene draws, thus allowing their histories to contribute to the impact of the art. Other times, he manipulates the materials to give them the appearance of possessing more of a past than they actually have. Through these processes, the objects provide clues to the story of the person who made the object or to the personified object itself.