Opening reception, Thursday January 20, 2011, 7-9 p.m.

The scientific method is a process for documenting events, creating knowledge, and testing theories. Peter Happel Christian measures, collects information, and records data, creating sculptures and photographs that are positioned at the intersection of art, science, and history. He observes the technologies that mediate our everyday relationship with art and natural phenomena, including geography, cartography, and topographical surveys. As part of his MAEP exhibition, “Ground Truth,” Happel Christian has invited MIA staff to collaborate with him. He has asked to borrow their office plants, which he will then install in the MAEP galleries and care for during the show.

Margaret Wall-Romana’s work engages with the traditions of oil painting. She controls the physics of paint, but also lets go of that control to open up to the paint’s own properties. The irresistible tensions on the surfaces of her large-scale paintings keep viewers looking. Wall-Romana structures her paintings using an elaborate atmospheric perspective balanced with non-illusionistic color. A sharp student of art history, she conflates the still-life delicacies of the Dutch Golden Age with Mannerist attitudes towards scale, Hudson River School atmospherics, and yolky Abstract Expressionist smears. Formally, she pushes the physical properties of paint to their limit, with her use of thin, translucent colors to create delicate surfaces, and chalky impasto for ripe forms and textures.

Download .pdf versions of the exhibition brochures:

“Ground Truth” brochure (452kb .pdf)
“Painting Before and After Words” brochure (352 kb .pdf)