Major Kaye in her Atlantic Works Studio, September 2016

Atlantic Works Gallery Member 

Marjorie Kaye’s sculptures reach out and in and up and beyond. The transcendent stacks of energy are constructed from pieces of plywood, which are cut into shapes with a jig saw, smoothed and then tinted with bold gouache color–or house paint washes. The pieces are assembled in sequences, one piece glued or nailed against the other, forming patterns that transit from basic schematics of color and size into higher, longer and wider dimensions that strive to be freed from the constraints physicality. In her gracious unfolding of form, Kaye considers the mechanics of duality, and the vibration between the laws of intention and those of magnetism.

Perhaps classical in inception, the sculptures are very particular to our present time and reflect the emotions of a meditation on internal space. “I reflect who I am as a person. I bring my inside experience outside,” Kaye says.

Kaye sculptures and paintings have been shown both locally and nationally. She has an BFA in painting and has done graduate work in printmaking. Her work has been reviewed in many publications including the Boston Globe and ArtScope Magazine. She is the founder/member/owner of Galatea Fine Art in Boston, MA, a large artist-run gallery.

In her most recent work Kaye breaks down the emotive qualities of sound, dissecting music, particularly the curvaceous, meticulous and musical chases composed by Bach. She appreciates Bach’s order and expression, pointing out that his arrangements are repetitive and sequential, like her art. “Bach didn’t express chaos. Order allows emotion to come through.”

Kaye grew up in the Boston area, in a musical environment. “It began in the crib–the listening, the appreciating, the dissecting. The family took me to Leonard Bernstein concerts, to musicals.” She remembers seeing, The Carnival of Animals with her grandmother. Kaye sang in oratorios. “In my mid-20s, after art school, I studied voice. But I found I was more interested in music theory than performance. The calibrations. Cadence. The ideas.”

“Yes,” she smiles. “I ride a lot of different horses,”  adding, “when I was young I  started a journey of many disciplines: music, the occult, theosophy, astrology, Judeo-Christian texts, the Kabbala. Eventually it culminated in Zen Buddhism.  And I’m still investigating, contemplating, researching…

“When I think about organized religion, I see no differences. Each is a system to look at the threads that join all of us together.” That thread is apparent in her art. “The most important thing in life is God and spirit. My  art is a spiritual practice; my ongoing contemplation is about the meaning of life. I ask: Who are we? What is nature?

She turned to sculpture as an expressive form when she and her companion, Artist George Shaw, began living together. “George is also a woodworker,” she explains. “There were of scraps of wood around the house. I started shaping the pieces and painting them. Finally I gave myself permission to do sculpture.“

Previously her painting (which she still practices and exhibits) had focused on the mandala. A mandala is a ritual symbol, representing the universe, that guides viewers into a sacred, internal space. “Instead of painting mandalas I began building them,” she says.

Marjorie Kaye’s sculptural mandalas

In 2016 Marjorie was awarded by the Provincetown Art Association and Museum: a Lillian Orlowsky/ William Freed Foundation grant. “On the application I wrote that with the funding I would get a studio and I did.” In June Kaye moved her tools, paints and wood to  a studio in East Boston, to 80 Border Street, Atlantic Works Studios.

In her studio she doesn’t listen to music. “I like complete silence. Plus I use power tools, and they make a lot of loud noise.” As far as color, the color of her work is bold. “The brighter the better,” she says. Orange seems to be the bridge color. “I use orange to pull everything together. To get from here to there.”

She can’t predict how having a dedicated art studio will effect her work. “For sure I have more opportunity to look and consider each piece,” she says. “But I worked hard in my home studio. I’m just a hard worker; it’s my nature. I’m process oriented. I make the best of any situation.”

Marjorie Kaye getting ready to use the jigsaw

MARJORIE KAYE’S ONGOING AND UPCOMING SHOWS:

The Poetics of Space. (with George Shaw) at Atlantic Works Gallery, 80 Border Street, East Boston, MA.  October 8-29, 2016.

Colo Colo Gallery, 29 Centre Street, New Bedford MA. December 2016

FOR MORE VISUALS and info VISIT www.marjoriekayeart.com

THE POETICS of SPACE

Featuring George Shaw and Marjorie Kaye

October 8 – 29, 2016
IMG Credit, L-R: George Shaw, Marjorie Kaye

George Shaw and Marjorie Kaye will present unique approaches examining the lyrical dissection of space and surface in in this two-person exhibition at Atlantic Works Gallery in East Boston.

George Shaw’s paintings and constructions are on and made of wood panels, and consist of oil paint, oil pastel, dry pigment, wax medium, molding and found objects. This combination produces a balance between luminosity and saturation, with a focus on texture and the relationship between minimal objects and space. The background and foreground is interchangeable, creating illusive space, yet there are very distinct relationships between them.

He writes: “The physics of consciousness, in relation to modern quantum mechanics theory illustrates my intention in regards to my work. I am interested in what consciousness truly is and the physical connection between our consciousness and/or spirit and the universe; and that we are truly interrelated.” The desire for an answer appears as a shelter, an anchor, a sanctuary: home. “Gradually, in my works, a house-like shape emerged, and became an important element: a counter-point to a universe, poised on the knife edge of meaning and the precipice of the void.”

Marjorie Kaye’s sculptures consist of individual forms cut from plywood, nailed and layered with wood glue. Some of the pieces are painted with gouache and sealed with acrylic medium. Others are made to be either interior or exterior pieces harmoniously settled within the environment, painted with exterior house paint. Whether free-standing or wall mounted, the pieces are built out from a mass or a singular point. Many are layered in a circular formation, forming cone-like attached entities.

Her gouache paintings start from automatic drawing, releasing form and shape from movement. The forms are immediately organic, swirling and undulating from one end of the surface from the other. Once this has been established, the shapes are dissecting it into their unique rhythms, balancing between energy and calculation. There are many solutions to the imminent puzzle put forth by the initial drawing, all based on sequence.

Both sculptures and paintings address the puzzles present within the etheric universe. Both inward and outward are the mechanics of duality, vibrating between the laws of intention and those of chance, and coming together in an ocean of predetermination.

Opening Reception: Saturday, October 8, 2016, 2016, 6-9PM
Third Thursday Reception and Artist Talks: Thursday, October 20, 6-9PM
Gallery Hours: Fridays & Saturdays, 2-6 PM or by appointment

Predicting the Past: A Sampler

Featuring Charlene Liska, Suzanne Mercury, and Diane Teubner

September 9 – 30, 2016
IMG Credit, L-R: Liska, Mercury, Teubner

Three artists look beneath the layer we call the present to predict, in cross-section, what may have been. In this dissection they realign the stitches, folding together pixel, weft, warp, and text – evaluating and fabricating new patterns of investigation.

Charlene Liska makes video installations, photos, and related recombinant paintings.

Suzanne Mercury draws from thresholds in her work – the liminal and transformative, intricate and ambiguous, the damaged and dreamlike.

Diane Teubner attends to interval, measure, and rhythms felt and found in her paintings and poetry.

Third Thursday Reception and Artist Talks: Thursday, September 15, 6-9PM
Closing Reception : Thursday, September 29, 2016, 6-9PM
Gallery Hours: Fridays & Saturdays, 2-6 PM or by appointment