Colorado artist Trudy Chiddix's Flaming Fingers

LOCATION: Plinth Gallery - 3520 Brighton Blvd

CATEGORY: Art Events

PAST DATE AND TIME:

• Fri, Feb 5, 2021 - Sat, Mar 27, 2021  

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Open First Friday, March 5, 6-9pm

For our first exhibition of 2021, we are pleased to exhibit new work by Colorado artist Trudy Chiddix. The artist holds a Bachelor's Degree in studio art from University of California Santa Barbara and a Master's Degree in Art Education from San Francisco State University. Her Bear Creek Studio is located in Evergreen Colorado and she also maintains a studio in San Francisco.

Her art is inspired by traditional crafts and folk art of many cultures—Europe, Asia, Africa—as well as creations of ancient civilizations discovered in museums, and in nature. She textures hand-built forms with her collection of multi-cultural items, and then adds her own carvings and patterns to create unique designs. In this exhibition will be a selection of Chiddix's Flaming Fingers, sculptures of hands with metal flames at the tips, that include in various languages and scripts, the words: health, hope, and joy—honoring those fighting the pandemic. The show also features her Kimono series, vessels, imprinted with textures and designs, to which she attaches stunning translucent fused glass elements—made in separate kiln firings—to the vessel. The merging of clay and glass is what makes Chiddix’s art stand out. She shows her diversity in her latest pieces—large discs with ornate design that balance on their edge—precarious, yet certain. She also includes figurative forms that delight, amuse, and calm—standing dignified as they speak to the viewer’s soul. “There’s an energy that flows through my hands when I’m making art; but now, I’m focused on hands around the world—helping and working in response to the pandemic.”

Plinth Gallery Curator Jonathan Kaplan opines that "Chiddix's work stands out not only as an exemplary combination of clay and glass, but as work that is deeply influenced by history and current events. She deftly merges both materials with confidence and expertise, often bluring the lines of materiality. Her art is an example in which "idea" and "material" do not exist as separate entities; she effortlessly blends both together in a clear, and coherent statement about her nature of things. It is an honor to exhibit her work at Plinth Gallery.