Pictured above: 2024 Best in Show: We Are Woven by Laurie Frazer. (2023)
Ceramic, glass and stone on handmade dimensional substrates with tinted adhesive.
The 2024 Mosaic Arts International (MAI) exhibition, held in conjunction with the Society of American Mosaic Artists’ (SAMA’s) annual conference, runs from 25 August to 22 September in Michigan, USA. It then moves to Kansas City, where it’s set to run from 4 October to 2 January 2025.
The exhibition series comprises two segments: Fine Art and Site-Specific & Architectural Art. It also includes selected works from the 2021 Mosaic Arts International virtual exhibition and additional invitational works.
The collection elevates new perspectives of mosaic and architectural art and celebrates established and emerging artists working in this traditional medium today. All segments combined represent 41 artists from throughout the United States.
Both segments were juried by a panel, including: Dr. Vince Carducci, Cultural Critic and Dean Emeritus for the College of Cultural Studies, Detroit, Michigan; Yulia Hanansen, Artist and Educator, Baltimore, Maryland; and Jumaane N’Namdi, Gallery Director, N’Namdi Contemporary, Detroit, Michigan. Over several days, they selected 43 works for inclusion. The jurors were also tasked with selecting five awards from the work selected for the exhibition.
The exhibition presents a broad spectrum of practice, ranging from the classic representational techniques of finely assembled tesserae to contemporary approaches using a wide range of manufactured, handmade, and found materials in many shapes and forms. These diverse methods are applied to free-standing, wall-mounted, and site-specific works through which the artists address purely formalist, personally expressive, and community-based concerns, as appropriate to the creative context.
We Are Woven by Laurie Frazer was awarded Best in Show. Constructed of 54 mosaic “swatches”, the piece simulate textiles, a material with a prominent place in the artist’s personal experience and practice. Frazer sourced the swatches from a variety of people and places and brought them together in a modular composition in which each individual unit functions as a compelling visual element on its own, as well as within the nine larger, equally compelling elements of which each is a part, and ultimately into the exquisite visual whole that comprises the finished work.
Coal, shale, slate, red dog, taconite, Marcellus slate, malmischiato filati, smalti, gold smalti and copper. Installation location: The Ruins, 549 River Road Perryopolis, Pennsylvania, USA
“It is a tour-de-force of technical expertise and aesthetic sensitivity, using the warp-and-weft weaving technique as a method and metaphor for knitting together a tapestry of complex visual and interpersonal associations,” said Dr. Vince Carducci. “It should come as no surprise that it was recognized by all three jurors nearly from the start of the adjudication process as the piece that would ultimately be deemed Best in Show.”
Yulia Hanansen shared her approach to jurying the exhibition: “To appreciate the mosaic medium, I focus on the three aspects that are of most importance to me as a viewer: artwork concept, aesthetic appeal, and technical perfection. All three aspects must be balanced in a way that forms a harmony that allows for the artist’s voice to emerge.
“The overall goal of the MAI exhibition is to display the diversity of the contemporary mosaic medium. As jurors, we found this art form is as diverse as the number of artists practising it. This year’s selection offers a variety of artworks, ranging from large-scale installation pieces to portable wall pieces, and very intricate mosaics made from beads and pulled glass rods.”
“The artworks that stood out the most to me are: We Are Woven by Laurie Frazer, The Long View by Anabella Wewer, and Tear to Open by Kelley Knickerbocker,” Hanansen continued.
Crockery from which glaze has been chipped, India ink (drawn lines), epoxy putty (red shapes and edge ”frame”), metallic glass beads, and pigmented cement mortar.
“All three pieces are abstract, yet they could not be more different in their appearance. Frazer’s piece is a chorus of textures, layouts, and colors that are quite masterfully integrated to form a quilt composition that you want to keep on exploring. Wewer’s mosaic is an eloquent tale of andamento and perfectly composed colour fields, which speak of the environmental disaster on the rise, a proverbial “roadside picnic” that humans are leaving on their own planet.
“The notion of dangerous beauty is strongly present in this artwork. Knickerbocker’s piece is where traditional andamento and her experimental treatment of tesserae collide in a visual statement that fully supports the artist’s concept. I enjoy looking at this piece because it’s a perfect balance of the idea, colors, composition, and impeccable technical skills,” she adds.
Tesserae made from high-fired ceramic tile on cement backerboard. Installed Adams Recreation Center, City of San Diego Parks & Recreation in Normal Heights, 3491 Adams Avenue, San Diego, CA 92116. Photo by Denis Reiter.
Exhibition details:
Janice Charach Gallery
6600 W. Maple Rd., West Bloomfield, MI 48322. Phone: 248.432.5579 (USA)
August 25 – September 22, 2024
For opening times, visit the gallery’s website.
Belger Crane Yard Gallery
Belger Arts Center. 2100 Walnut Street, Kansas City, MO, 64108. Phone: 816-474-7316 (USA)
October 4, 2024 – January 4, 2025
For opening times, visit the gallery’s website.
Artists featured:
Melanie Berry, Jolino Beserra, Cherie Bosela, Todd Campbell, Melanie Christie, Darcel Deneau, Barbara Dybala, Kim Emerson, Jolynn Forman, Laurie Frazer, Barbara Galazzo, Eileen Gay, Lenni Gilbert, Sandra Groeneveld, Shug Jones, Kelley Knickerbocker, Jessica Liddell, Laurie Mika, Dianna Orth, Gila Rayberg, Julie Reilly, Laura Rendlen, Cindy Robin, Helga Maribel Sanchez-Seda, Karen Sasine, Joan Schwartz, Michelle Sider, Mary Smart, John Sollinger, Kathy Thaden, Marguerite Trail, Ruth Tyszka, Donna Van Hooser, Anabella Wewer, Kim Wozniak, and Wilma Wyss.
Additional work from the 2021 Virtual Mosaic Arts International will be redisplayed for the first time by SAMA in-person by the following artists: Melanie Berry, Todd Campbell, Julie Dilling, Jacki Gran, Sandra Groeneveld, Beth Klingher, Gila Rayberg, Michelle Sider, Kathy Thaden, and Donna Van Hooser.