Cornelia Kubler Kavanagh
cornelia kavanagh@aol.com
www.corneliakavanagh.com
www.corneliakavanagh.com
ARCTIC ICE MELT: Moulins of My Mind
September 8 – October 3, 2009
“ARCTIC ICE MELT: Moulins of My Mind,” a solo exhibition of 11 sculptures by Cornelia Kubler Kavanagh, was featured at Blue Mountain Gallery, 530 West 25th Street, New York, NY, September 8 – October 3, 2009 Previewed in February 2009 at the American Museum of Natural History during the International Polar Weekend, Kavanagh’s exhibition focused on ice tunnels called moulins that are formed when melt water rushes through glacial crevasses.
“The paradox of water as an element of natural beauty and an instrument of destruction fascinates me,” says Kavanagh. She first attempted to express this duality in THE TSUNAMI PROJECT, an exhibition of sculpture based on tsunami waves carved in response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004. Reviewing Kavanagh’s exhibition in the December, 2006 issue of SCULPTURE, William Zimmer wrote that “The exalting of something awful is a seeming contraction that might be difficult to assimilate, but it’s the kind of singular tension embraced by the highest art.”
Something ineffable drew Kavanagh to the notion of moulins long before she understood their emotional resonance in her mind’s eye. Quite serendipitously, while reading a Barnard College alumnae magazine, Kavanagh discovered Dr. Stephanie Pfirman’s work as an Arctic ice specialist. Dr. Pfirman directed her inquiries to Dr. Konrad Steffen, Professor of Climatology at the University of Colorado, who had lowered a rotation laser digital camera fifteen hundred feet into a moulin to measure the volume of melt-water running through it. His images of surging water cascading into this moulin “confirmed” that the moulins Kavanagh was sculpting were valid symbolic representations of natural phenomena seen by very few people.
ARCTIC ICE MELT: Moulins of My Mind is Kavanagh’s emotional response to Dr. Steffen’s pioneering photography. “By suggesting abraded surfaces and turgid swirls,” says Kavanagh, “I have tried to convey the ominous message that global warming portends for a world of ice that is increasingly threatened.”
Kavanagh has had four previous solo exhibitions in New York, and has participated in a number of group shows nationally and abroad. In 2005, she represented the United States Virgin Islands Council on the Arts at the 51st Venice Biennale, and her work has been shown at SOFA Chicago, the Miami Design District during Art Basel Miami Beach and two OPEN shows in Venice-Lido which exhibit artists from around the world. She has also been extensively exhibited in galleries and museums in the north east.
Kavanagh received an AA from Pine Manor College, a BA in Art History from Barnard College and an MA from Columbia University. Listed in Who’s Who in American Art, Kavanagh is a member of the Connecticut Women Artists, a member of the National Association of Women Artists and a colleague of the National Sculpture Society. Kavanagh works out of studios in Norwalk, CT and St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. The full range of her work can be seen by visiting www.corneliakavanagh.com .
September 8 – October 3, 2009
“ARCTIC ICE MELT: Moulins of My Mind,” a solo exhibition of 11 sculptures by Cornelia Kubler Kavanagh, was featured at Blue Mountain Gallery, 530 West 25th Street, New York, NY, September 8 – October 3, 2009 Previewed in February 2009 at the American Museum of Natural History during the International Polar Weekend, Kavanagh’s exhibition focused on ice tunnels called moulins that are formed when melt water rushes through glacial crevasses.
“The paradox of water as an element of natural beauty and an instrument of destruction fascinates me,” says Kavanagh. She first attempted to express this duality in THE TSUNAMI PROJECT, an exhibition of sculpture based on tsunami waves carved in response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004. Reviewing Kavanagh’s exhibition in the December, 2006 issue of SCULPTURE, William Zimmer wrote that “The exalting of something awful is a seeming contraction that might be difficult to assimilate, but it’s the kind of singular tension embraced by the highest art.”
Something ineffable drew Kavanagh to the notion of moulins long before she understood their emotional resonance in her mind’s eye. Quite serendipitously, while reading a Barnard College alumnae magazine, Kavanagh discovered Dr. Stephanie Pfirman’s work as an Arctic ice specialist. Dr. Pfirman directed her inquiries to Dr. Konrad Steffen, Professor of Climatology at the University of Colorado, who had lowered a rotation laser digital camera fifteen hundred feet into a moulin to measure the volume of melt-water running through it. His images of surging water cascading into this moulin “confirmed” that the moulins Kavanagh was sculpting were valid symbolic representations of natural phenomena seen by very few people.
ARCTIC ICE MELT: Moulins of My Mind is Kavanagh’s emotional response to Dr. Steffen’s pioneering photography. “By suggesting abraded surfaces and turgid swirls,” says Kavanagh, “I have tried to convey the ominous message that global warming portends for a world of ice that is increasingly threatened.”
Kavanagh has had four previous solo exhibitions in New York, and has participated in a number of group shows nationally and abroad. In 2005, she represented the United States Virgin Islands Council on the Arts at the 51st Venice Biennale, and her work has been shown at SOFA Chicago, the Miami Design District during Art Basel Miami Beach and two OPEN shows in Venice-Lido which exhibit artists from around the world. She has also been extensively exhibited in galleries and museums in the north east.
Kavanagh received an AA from Pine Manor College, a BA in Art History from Barnard College and an MA from Columbia University. Listed in Who’s Who in American Art, Kavanagh is a member of the Connecticut Women Artists, a member of the National Association of Women Artists and a colleague of the National Sculpture Society. Kavanagh works out of studios in Norwalk, CT and St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. The full range of her work can be seen by visiting www.corneliakavanagh.com .