Fragile
Nancy Storrow
GALLERY I
Fragile I, 2020 and Fragile II, 2020, pastel and pastel pencil on paper, 19 1/2 x 19 inches each.
November 20 — December 20, 2020
A.I.R. Gallery is pleased to announce Fragile, an exhibition by A.I.R. Gallery New York Artist Nancy Storrow.
Fragile is an installation of abstracted leaf “portraits.” With pastel drawings pinned across the gallery walls at fluctuating intervals and heights, the installation forms a rhythmic narrative, punctuated by lightness and gravity. Each piece is linked to the whole by line and placement, mirroring how we see leaves in nature. A column of dense, monochromatic line drawings suggests a tree.
The artist writes, “I have had a longtime affair with natural forms. This past year I fell in love with the huge, windblown leaves in the garden. The forest floor, the backyard, the path is strewn and littered with them. They follow me into the house, into my studio and into my shoes. They drift, scatter, and settle in corners. I wanted to portray them and the poignancy of their physical deterioration over time. I began drawing—re-shaping, crumpling, distorting them. Leaves are like messengers. The leaves are what is left and what will return.”
The drawings recall the inner energy of the leaves, transforming their torn, shriveled reality. A sense of growth and movement enlivens some drawings, crowding the paper, while others are spare and meditative. There is a delicate balance of wavering marks, layers of atmospheric color, and the trailing of pastel fingerprints.
Five small, rounded cement sculptures, overgrown with moss, offer a counterpoint to the delicacy and motion of the leaves. Attesting to duration and resilience, the sculptures’ contours have been eroded by time, plant matter, and earth.
Storrow considers aging and the passing of time. Here are things that are uncertain, that are falling, and that need to be held. Fragile captures the raw edge of physical deterioration and balances it with a bright core of toughness found in the remnants.
An artist member of A.I.R. Gallery since 1982, Nancy Storrow has had 12 solo exhibitions and has been included in many group exhibitions. She has exhibited throughout the United States and in Europe. Recent exhibitions include Next Stage Arts Project, Putney, VT; Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Brattleboro, VT; Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Steinhardt Conservatory Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; and Konsthallen, Sandviken, Sweden, where she gave a Gallery Talk. One of her drawings was selected for the Wall Program and frontispiece of program booklet for Yellow Barn Music, Putney, VT. Her work was reproduced for the cover of Clockhouse Journal, Vol. Seven, Goddard College, 2019. Her exhibition Edgeland was reviewed in Artscope Magazine, 2018. She is currently working on a Beethoven Project with Yellow Barn Music.
Recent Press:
Noelani Kirschner, “Nancy Storrow”, The American Scholar, May 3, 2021, https://theamericanscholar.org/nancy-storrow/.
Public Program
Drift/ Scatter/ Settle
Sunday, December 13th at 4:00 & 4:30 PM
A collaborative music response by Marcia Bassett to the movement and altered placement of drawings in Fragile. The performance will be accessible to a limited in-person audience.
For more information, click here.
Videography: Renana Neuman.
Photography: Sebastian Bach