Volume Gallery is thrilled to present new sculptures by ArandaLasch and Terrol Dew Johnson and new weavings by Christy Matson at NADA New York. These innovative makers are developing experimental patterns and techniques while honoring their respective traditions.
Design studio ArandaLasch has collaborated with renowned artist and basket weaver Terrol Dew Johnson of the Tohono O’odham Nation for over a decade. As collaborators, they approach basket construction as a framework for experimentation and expression, sharing knowledge and tradition; and as a medium of exchange that bundles various materials and voices together.
Their process begins by collecting materials around Tucson and Sells, Arizona. The result of ongoing material experiments, the suspended forms are made of open coils of wire with panels of yucca paper and coils of horsehair or bear grass bundled with sinew. By inventing a new material language from the desert and respecting time-honored techniques, these constructions offer a uniquely Sonoran interpretation of the art of baskets.
Christy Matson begins her subtly colored weavings with a sketch, collage, or watercolor that she translates into complex pixelized images to be woven by a hand-operated, computer-programmable Jacquard loom. She paints the majority of fibers that make up her work and manually feeds the materials into the loom.
Matson’s work is both gestural and geometric, each weaving a unique blend of handmade and digital elements. Some new weavings resemble Modernist paper cut-out collage with familiar shapes, others riff on the concept of the grid and even depict splatters of paint, all utilizing painterly effects but in reality, meticulously woven.
The New Art Dealers Alliance is pleased to present the 8th edition of NADA New York, returning to the Lower East Side May 5–8, 2022 at Pier 36. NADA New York will showcase a diverse selection from 81 members and a total of 120 galleries, art spaces, and non-profit organizations spanning 37 cities and 18 countries, including Paris, Tokyo, Istanbul, Kyiv, Buenos Aires, and Mexico City. The fair will also feature NADA Presents, the organization’s signature programming series of conversations, performances, and events.
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Terrol Dew Johnson (Tohono O’odham, b. 1973) is a community leader, nationally recognized advocate for Native communities, and renowned artist. In 1996, Johnson co-founded Tohono O’odham Community Action (TOCA), a grassroots community organization dedicated to creating positive programs based in the O’odham Himdag–the Desert People’s Way. In 2002, Johnson and TOCA Co-Director Tristan Reader were recognized as one of the nation’s top leadership teams when they received the Ford Foundation’s Leadership for a Changing World Award. Johnson’s collaborations range from museum exhibitions to documentaries and book publications. In October 1999, Johnson was named one of “America’s top ten young community leaders” by the Do Something Foundation.
In 2009-10, Johnson walked from Maine to Arizona as a part of “The Walk Home: A Journey to Native Wellness,” bringing awareness to the crisis of Diabetes in Native communities and highlighting the ways in which communities have the capacity to create wellness by drawing upon their rich cultural traditions.
As an artist, Johnson began learning to weave baskets in school when he was just ten years old. He is now recognized as one of the top Native American basket weavers in the U.S. He has won top honors at such shows as Santa Fe Indian Market, O’odham Tash, the Heard Museum Fair, and the Southwest Indian Art Fair. His work is in the permanent collections of museums such as the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian and the Heard Museum. Today, Johnson combines basketry with other media such as bronze castings and gourds.
New York and Tucson-based design studio ArandaLasch designs buildings, installations, and furniture through a deep investigation of structure and materials. Recognition includes the United States Artists Award, Young Architects Award, Design Vanguard Award, AD Innovators, and the Architectural League Emerging Voices Award. Their early projects are the subject of the book, Tooling. ArandaLasch has exhibited internationally in galleries, museums, design fairs, and biennials. Chris Lasch is President at The School of Architecture (founded by Frank Lloyd Wright as The Taliesin Fellowship) at Arcosanti and Cosanti in Arizona. Benjamin Aranda is Assistant Professor at The Cooper Union in New York.
As collaborators, ArandaLasch and Terrol Dew Johnson’s exhibitions include Baskets in 2006 at Artists Space in New York, NY, Meeting the Clouds Halfway in 2016 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tucson, AZ, Coil & Cloud in 2017 at Volume Gallery in Chicago, IL, and Unraveling at the Sarasota Art Museum in Sarasota, FL in 2021. Art in Embassies of the U.S. Department of State has commissioned a large-scale structural weaving by the artists to be installed at the new U.S. Embassy in Asuncion, Paraguay. Their work is in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Christy Matson lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Recent solo exhibitions include the Cranbrook Art Museum, which featured a special commission for the US Art in Embassies Program and the Long Beach Museum of Art. Her work has been in dozens of group exhibitions including the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum, the Craft and Folk Art Museum Los Angeles, the Asheville Art Museum and The Knoxville Museum of Art.
Matson’s work is in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, The Milwaukee Art Museum, and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art’s Renwick Gallery. In 2012 Matson was tenured and appointed as Associate Professor of Fiber and Material Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Currents 38: Christy Matson, a solo exhibition including over 40 recent works, recently opened at the Milwaukee Art Museum and will be on view through July 17, 2022.
