La Frontera shown in Mingei International Museum, San Diego, and Cecut, Tijuana

Added on by Thea Clark.

La Frontera exhibitions have finished. The final shows were major undertakings. I went to San Deigo, then crossed the border to Cecut, in Tijuana, for the first opening, then the next day attended San Diego’s Mingei Museum opening. We walked through the San Ysidro entry with many day workers, coincidentally the location of one of my inspirations, Marcos Ramirez Erre’s, 1997, large wooden two headed Trojan Horse sculpture “Toy an Horse”.

Ornament Magazine published an extensive article about the shows in the October 2024 issue. My piece “All Work and No Play” is included. Phot courtesy of the Mingei International Muesum

La Frontera, revisited

Added on by Thea Clark.

Opening in August, the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for Visual Arts * hosts the latest iteration of international exhibition “La Frontera” on the tenth anniversary of the original exhibition. New works and additional artists focus a contemporary perspective on the current state of the border. A second opening will overlap in the Fall of 2023 at Centro Cultural de Las Fronteras UACJ, Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua Mexico. These two exhibitions will later travel to the Mingei International Museum, San Diego, CA and Centro Cultural Tijuana (CECUT) in 2024-25.

As an original participant, I am so happy to have works included in these new exhibitions.

  • See my piece “All Work and No Play” the bottom middle image.

August 1- 28 GROW (Greensboro Residency for Original Works)

Added on by Thea Clark.

I will start a 4 week long residency in the downtown Greensboro Cultural Center. I plan to work in fiber, metal, enamel, paper, cyanotype creating sculpture and installation. My art examines how accelerating climate change impacts our psyche and our relationship to nature. How do we find agency, and hope for creative solutions?

New group show

Added on by Thea Clark.

I am thrilled to have a new mixed media piece in a new fall group show “Hypotheses” curated by Susan Wrbican at Target Gallery (Alexandria, VA).

This exhibition is all about the process of intellectual experimentation and/or the exploration of new ideas and techniques in an artist’s practice.

The goal of this theme is to create a dialogue of work in conversation with each other about embarking outside one’s traditional boundaries of understanding. Whether it be based in cerebral or scientific research or experimenting with a new technique or conceptual idea, each work in the exhibition will embody this concept of questioning and discovery.

September 11- October 31. Reception, October 8, 7 pm.

Site Effects Group Exhibition Munich January 17th- February 29th, 2020

Added on by Thea Clark.

12 artists from the USA 12 artists from Europe each making 1 piece of their own and one piece in response to an unknown artist statement, all shown side by side without artist identification. What piece is made where, which statement originates in the US which in Europe? The viewers will see if they can determine the origins of each. Opening in Munich followed by The Art Alliance in Philadelphia April 4-May 24, then The Baltimore Jewelry Center May 5-July 10.

Super excited to be showing with the following artists:

From Europe: Sofia Björkman, Caroline Broadhead, Liesbet Bussche, Anja Eichler, Maria Rosa Franzin, Sara Gackowska, Lena Grabher, Peter Hoogeboom, Anastasia Kandaraki, Kristiina Laurits, Nanna Melland, Estela Saez

From the US: Kristen Beeler, Thea Clark, Nikki Coupee, Emily Culver, Bob Ebendorf, Rebekah Frank, Holland Houdek, Anya Kivarkis, Seth Papac, Sondra Sherman, Marjorie Simon, Katja Toporski

Opening January 17- February 29, 2020

Bayerischer Kunstgewerbeverein

„Site Effects”

Pacellistrasse 6-8

80333 München

Germany

Telephone: +49 089 / 29 01 47 - 0

Duality of Presence

Added on by Thea Clark.


This project is a collaboration of two American Professors of Jewelry and Metals curating an exhibition of American contemporary art jewelry to take place at the Super + CENTERCOURT Gallery in Munich, Germany during the annual International Exposition of Trades and Crafts (Handwerksmesse) and the internationally renowned exhibition, Munich Jewelry Week / Schmuck 2017.


 Seventeen prominent contemporary art jewelers have been invited to participate along with the two organizers in Duality of Presence an exhibition that explores a movement in American contemporary jewelry and object making where artists aim to reveal hidden narratives through material, format, presentation, and interaction. The works reveal and question histories, lineage, conveyance, and supply chain to expand and contract possible contexts of meaning. In virtual reality a ‘duality of presence’ refers to the user’s ability to be present in both their own reality and another, via technology. This duality of presence highlights a specific approach in American making where artists explore both visible and veiled contexts through material, connecting the objects we make to a multiplicity of perspectives generated by these connections. This exhibition suggests and demonstrates that material specificity conjures both the reality in front of us, and others – at a distance. To be simultaneously viewing the artwork in the gallery, but also be transported by the materials story provides insight to our relationships with objects, materials, and histories through materiality, research, and making.

 

Exhibiting artist include:  Jessica Anderson, Lynn Batchelder, Thea Clark, Nikki Couppee, Motoko Furuhashi, Steven Gordon Holman, Alexandra Hopp, Masumi Kataoka, Joshua Kosker, Tova Lund, Sharon Massey, Jaydan Moore, Wei Lah Poh, Kerianne Quick, Kaiya Rainbolt, Yumi Janairo Roth, Jina Seo, Demitra Thomloudis, and Jess Tolbert. 

Cyrosphere So Blue

Added on by Thea Clark.

 

Velvet Da Vinci is pleased to present Thea Clark’s Cryosphere So Blue, a site-specific installation in the gallery’s two-story elevator shaft. The show will run May 11 – 26, 2016. An Artist’s Reception will take place Friday, May 13, 2016, from 6-8pm.

 

The term cryosphere refers to the frozen water on the earth’s surface. The installation is inspired by the work of pioneering female Arctic explorer Louise A. Boyd of San Rafael, California who in the 1930’s conducted numerous expeditions to Eastern Greenland to do research on glaciers and geography. Boyd’s work included documenting the landscapes with hundreds of photographs made using state of the art cameras. Her collective research from over 80 years ago is still used today as a reference point for climate change studies.

Boyd’s black and white images capture amazing surface detail but we know the true glowing blues of icebergs and glaciers were only possible to see in person. Thea Clark’s sculpture and jewelry installation is influenced by these captured images, Boyd’s actual seen experience, documented scientific findings, and the nautical aspect of the exploration. Through the use of color, texture, and materials Clark pays homage to the natural wonder of the Arctic. Clark focuses on the pioneering spirit of Boyd through the lens of today’s knowledge of man’s responsibility for the rapid loss of our cryosphere.

February 24- March 1, "New Work From the New World"

Added on by Thea Clark.

In coordination with Schmuck 2016, Munich Germany at Galerie Biro represented by Jewelers Werk Galerie (Washington DC)

" Galerie Biro in Kooperation mit Jewelers Werk, Washington DC, "New Work
from the New World",Thea Clark, Rebekah Frank and Iris Eichenberg, Missy Graff, Lisa Gralnick, Mielle Harvey, Darcy Miro, Edgar Mosa, Carolanne Patterson, Sharon Portelance, Sayumi Yokouchi, Jonathan Wahl, zu Gast in der Galerie Jordanow, Zieblandstr. 19, 80799
München, 24.-28.2., 11-19h"

Opening "Guide Ropes and Live Wires"

Added on by Thea Clark.

Sunday January 31 2-4 pm, 2016

Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, 68 Elm Street, Summit, NJ 07901

Main Gallery and Mitzi & Warren Eisenberg Gallery

This special exhibition showcases a wide range of visual practices and features work by thirty nine of the Art Center's talented faculty. Students will see their mentors put theory into practice and all will be inspired by their ingenuity and creative vision.

Artist Talk, The (Not) So Secret Life of Plants

Added on by Thea Clark.

 

 

Curator Tour & Artist Talk with Thea Clark

Tuesday, November 10, 10-11am

Paul Robeson Galleries - Main Gallery

350 Dr Martin Luther King Blvd

Newark, NJ 07102

FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYBODY

  Join us for a curator tour of "The (Not So) Secret Life of Plants," led by Director/Curator Anonda Bell and followed by an artist talk and Q&A with artist Thea Clark.

New Jersey artist Thea Clark works in installation, photography, cyanotype, and mixed media to engage ideas on identity, gender, and how humans interact with the world around them.  She writes, "My two most recent bodies of work have been a response to the pressures of human forces on the natural environment and the pushback of the natural environment impacting our built one."  

 

The (Not) So Secret Life of Plants

Added on by Thea Clark.

2015 The (Not) So secret Life of Plants, group show in the Paul Robeson Gallery, Rutgers University , Newark, curated by Anonda Bell, catalog.

Sep 01, 2015 - Dec 17, 2015
Main Gallery

Opening reception Thursday, September 10, 5-7pm

Plants are the foundation on which most visible life on the planet exists.  They are under stress, with diminishing natural environments and the very real possibility that many plants may become extinct even before humans are aware of their existence.  This exhibition will explore the nature of plants and how humans interact with them, from the forest to the home.

Artists in this exhibition: Thea Clark, John Edmark, Dana Fritz, Jim Jacobs, Ming-Jer Kuo, Jessica Lagunas, Sam Metcalf, Lina Puerta, Lindsay M. Robbins, Martina Shenal, Linda Stillman, Adam Swart, Yeon Ji Yoo, Rachel Yurkovich.

Where:

The Main Gallery located in the Robeson Campus Center, 350 Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard (corner of MLK and Bleeker Street), Newark, New Jersey.

Hours:

Monday-Thursday, 8am-10pm
Friday, 8am-8pm
Saturday, 11am-7pm
 

New Group Exhibition, "Thou Art Mom", NJ

Added on by Thea Clark.

Pierro Gallery, South Orange, NJ

    

Thou Art Mom

September 18 - October 18, 2014

Thou Art Mom

Thou Art Mom is an exploration of motherhood and creativity, and how the two influence one another. For many women the decision to have a child is fraught with conflict about what it will require them to give up and how it will change their identity. Never is this conflict more acute than for women who are artists and often already juggling many aspects of their personal and professional lives. Curated by Susan Evans Grove

Thursday, September 18- Saturday, October 18

Opening: Thursday, September 18, 7-9pm

Lost in Living Screening and Panel Discussion: Thursday Oct 2, 7pm

VImeo Interview with Thea Clark