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Jeffrey Mongrain

September 13 - November 18, 2007

 

Thursday, September 13, 2007
Exhibit Opening
The Sculpture of Jeffrey Mongrain: Secrets and Revelations
Ceramic Sculpture by a leading American Artist
5:30 p.m. - 8 p.m. at the Art Museum
Free Admission

Pierced Moose with Branch
Pictured Right

 

The San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts presents The Sculpture of Jeffrey Mongrain: Secrets and Revelations, an exhibition featuring the work of a contemporary New York artist.

Mongrain's sculptures are visually quiet, physically eloquent and conceptually meaningful. The artist creates beautiful objects that are simplified yet contain ambivalence and mystery. He works often with simple forms -- circular discs, floating hand rails, suspended bells and stone pillows. His exquisitively crafted objects radiate tranquility but also convey a secret conversation between object and context.

The circular motif appears frequently in Mongrain's work. The Luckiest Man …(2005), pictured right, for instance, is a wall piece, a large black disk made of clay with ripples that replicate the sound waves of the phrase 'the luckiest man'. This phrase is from the famous farewell speech by Lou Gehrig from home plate of Yankee Stadium on July 4th 1939. In the center of the piece is a hole (the size of the small end of a 1939 baseball bat) containing sand from Home Plate of Yankee Stadium.

Another series of the artist's work evolves around the shape of a pillow, and was inspired by the medieval crypt sculptures that are frequently seen in European cathedrals. One of his pieces, An Evening's Breath (2001), pictured right, is a sculpture in clay of a pillow form which appears to float in the air. The figure is absent but the pillow retains the impression of the sleeper's head. Furthermore, a note of mystery and poignancy is added with the inclusion of a precisely calculated amount of water caught in the central depression of the pillow. The amount is 8.5 ounces, the approximate amount of water respired by a female in the course of eight hours of sleep.

Mongrain creates many of his most powerful pieces for religious spaces. In recent years, he has completed site-specific installations in Christus Church, Cologne, Germany; the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York; La Scala Santa, Rome; and Corpus Christi Church, Baltimore. Part of the exhibit in San Angelo will include large framed photographs depicting these temporary installations in houses of worship throughout Europe and the United States.

Jeffrey Mongrain was born in International Falls, Minnesota in 1956. He received a BFA from the University of Minnesota and MFA from Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Il. He is currently head of the ceramics department at Hunter College Art Department in New York. During the 1990s he spent seven years as a Lecturer at the prominent Glasgow School of Art in Glasgow, Scotland, during which time he was able to travel widely in Europe and absorb the visual impact of the great cathedrals and synagogues.