Review

"Springtime in Winter" (Detail), Hand-Dyed and Stripped Fabric Installation.

Holly Swangstu
Springtime in Winter

4-7 p.m.
(Opening Reception)

Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art
2818 Frederick Ave.
St. Joseph, MO
816.233.7003

Hours after opening reception: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 1-4 p.m. Saturday-Sunday
Runs through: April 3

Museum site: http://www.albrecht-kemper.org

Too often, the mind and heart are set at odds against each other. In business, we advise, “Use your head.” In love, it’s “Trust your feelings.”

In art ... well, pick your school of thought. One side values intuition, aesthetics and expressiveness; the other cherishes careful planning, meticulous execution and Something Meaningful to Say.

But there is a third way ... a way that charts the middle course between the purely cerebral and the rawly emotional ... and this is the way Holly Swangstu has chosen for her site-based fabric painting installation, Springtime in Winter.

The Abstract Expressionist work is both outer and inner landscape, with layers of meaning ranging from the fiercely private to the wide-open welcoming. It reconciles, for the first time, Swangstu’s dual nature as an artist.

She is a committed theoretician, skilled in the use and arrangement of color and relishing the challenge of organizing strips of hand-dyed cotton fabric into a harmonious whole.

"When I’m making my art, I am painting," she says. "I just make the 'paints' first. When I’m dyeing my fabric, I’m creating my palette."

But, she adds, "There are also times it’s OK just to make something beautiful — where the only challenge is to replicate a memory, to take a break and pretend I’m somewhere else."

A project of this scope, with 120 yards of fabric to be stripped, arranged, stretched and assembled into the finished landscape, naturally requires extensive planning. It also requires the confidence to execute that plan — and demands of Swangstu a willingness to push herself to another level as an artist.

"This is the first time I’ve given myself the freedom, the permission, to put my energy into creating something this large out of nothing," she says. "This is so much more than I would normally do."

Pulling viewers into more than a purely visual engagement, however, mandates that Springtime in Winter be invested with emotional resonance.

There must be storms — real storms, the sky dark and torn with clouds. But there must also be the momentary glimpse of blue through the gray, promising the return of the sun. There must be peace afterward, the glow of a well-earned evening rest after the labors and struggles of the day. There must be beauty, both for its own sake and the sake of celebrating the glories of the natural world.

Make no mistake, though. This an intensely personal work, born out of a major life change that has given Swangstu both the task and the opportunity of reweaving the fabric of her own existence.

"I’m in a season of trying to make sense of things," she says. "I’m discovering where I am and where I want to be."

And where she wants to be is moving forward.

Not around the storms, or huddling inside until they go away, but through them. Not retreating into the familiar and safe, but mapping out new territory with every strip of bright cloth.

The calendar be hanged. In Holly Swangstu’s art, in her life, in her world, this is the season of new growth and possibility.

This is Springtime in Winter.

Editor's note: This post was originally written for the exhibition brochure and appears here in consultation with the artist.

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