Rhonda Schaller Studio, the rapidly growing Chelsea Gallery featuring photographers, emerging artists, and re-emerging artists in Museum and public collections, will open the Fall Art Season with "Dust to Dust" by Israeli artist Rina Peleg. The show opens Saturday, September 8th, with an opening reception for the artist from 2:00 to 4:00, and runs through October 6.
Internationally known ceramic sculptor Rina Peleg continues her exploration of cryptic fragments and dry bones in her latest body of work in clay, steel, and string. Hints of narrative imbue each element, as the eye travels from found objects to remnants of figures to memories of treasures once buried -- now revealed.
This contemporary arrangement of human references evokes a primordial response, as does all of her work, which appears to have been unearthed from an archaeological site. They transcend any reference to time.
In Warrior, a large steel figure displays the fragments of memory in the open display of layers of bone. Like the remains found in the ancient Middle Eastern earth, which have influenced the artist born on a kibbutz, this human tower has much to do with the unique physicality of the human body and the spirit and vision that lies dormant within.
"I began to understand some of the sources from which I drew my ideas upon learning Jung's theory of the collective unconscious," Peleg says. "The place that exists between wakefulness, dreams and creativity." Indeed the unusual juxtaposition of found objects, clay and steel creates an otherworldly dreamlike texture to her figures and fragments, and attest to an imagination born of ancient roots.
The Israeli native has received over ten awards from both national and international foundations including the New York Foundation for the Arts, The Gottlieb Foundation, World Ceramics Biennial, South Korea, International Ceramics, Japan, and the 40th Concorso Internazionale Della Ceramica D'Arte Contemporaneas, Italy.
Peleg is in the Permanent Collections of Burchfield-Penny Art Center, Buffalo, NY, Davis and Brody Architects, New York, NY, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, Greenville Art Museum, Greenville, South Carolina, Haharetz Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel, Israeli Embassy, Washington D.C., Lannon Foundation, Palm Beach, Florida, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY, Robertson Center for the Arts, Albany, NY, Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art, Alfred University, Tajimi Cultural Hall, Tajimi City, Japan.
She received her MFA from Alfred University, and lives and works in NYC.
An exhibition catalogue is available.
Rhonda Schaller Studio is located at 547 West 27th Street, 5th Floor, New York City. Gallery hours are Thursday - Saturday, 12PM - 5PM.
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