Please join us at the gallery on Saturday, November 14th, from 12-4pm for an open house with artist Joan Wortis to experience her new solo exhibition, Luminous Rhythms.

Capacity will be limited to no more than 6 guests at one time; if you’d like to ensure a specific time for you visit, please contact us at info@artxchange.org to make an appointment.

Masks & distancing required.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:

In this new series Wortis combines line, light, and visual rhythm to create ethereal monotype collages. Wortis guides delicate sheets of translucent paper through her printing press with a variety of experimental materials and inks, creating unique textures and linear surfaces. She then layers the papers and adds collage elements, allowing light, color, and line to combine into captivating compositions. In her new work, these delicate layered prints are mounted to plexiglass and displayed in ways that allow light to pass through, transforming color, illuminating lines, and creating glowing abstractions.

In Luminous Rhythms Wortis returns to her primary theme, an exploration of “forms moving rhythmically in space,” as she describes in her artist statement. In densely linear works, such as Tango and Twirling, intertwining net-like forms fill the page with brief, strong brush-marks caught or tangled within. Works such as Pronouncement and Call and Response showcase script-like lines more clearly, as they stream down the surface in tangled silhouettes without being readable or recognizable, as if viewing an ancient tablet in a language that has been lost to the ages.

Originally from New York City, Joan Wortis’s extensive career in the arts has spanned modern dance, hand-weaving, commercial textile design, printmaking and collage. Movement has always influenced Wortis’ work as a visual artist, giving her a deep sensitivity to the lyrical qualities of line and shape. 

Following a 15 year career as a modern dancer and choreographer in the United States and Mexico, Joan moved to the world of visual art after studying weaving and textile design with renowned artists Adela Akers and Jack Lenor Larsen. Her weavings were shown at museums including the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York City.