Gallery Neptune is pleased to present "new" a solo exhibition of new art by Marie Ringwald, opening on March 6, 2008. Marie Ringwald's last solo exhibition of new work was in 2003 at the former Troyer Gallery in DuPont Circle, an exhibit which fully expressed the artist's affinity for using primitive woods and aging metals in her sculptural work. Choosing vernacular architecture as her muse, old warehouses, sheds, barns and other agricultural buildings influence the breadth of her new work as it has before, but this time the art is offered to us with more immediacy, simpler abstractions invite us to silence unnecessary chatter and listen.
"new" is a visual concert of natural materials and flat vibrant colors, assembled with masterful precision and the discerning eye of a minimalist designer. Arranged in groups or displayed as stand alone pieces, the exhibit features facades, sections and 3D sculptures. "Red + Green Duo" utilizes scraps of painted wood, revealing multiple surface textures and slight variations in values which when assembled together become an abstract quilt of glowing rectangles and squares. A thin green band cuts through each section of the duo, interrupting the rhythm of red with sensuous vertical spines. "White Air Drying Shed" a miniature building of repeat horizontal slats, effortlessly creates a superb positive/negative relationship between the tangible slats and the spaces between them. The structure is like an odd agricultural temple, a model of a sanctuary allowing the outside world to enter only through simple, uneven slices of air.
We encounter Marie Ringwald's work like finding polished rocks on a beach. Each is worthy of personal inspection, each makes us want to carry some of that finely formed, essential artifact back to our digitally infused lives. In a broadband landscape, Marie Ringwald's art works without satellite connections or cables. Perhaps it is a quieter message, but one that beckons to not ignore the value of such a primitive pulse.
Marie Ringwald has participated in many exhibitions in the Washington, DC area for over thirty years. Selected recent exhibitions include The Real (Art) World, The American University Museum Katzen Center, Washington, DC, 2006, The Southern Landscape, Lee Hansley Gallery, Raleigh, North Carolina, 2006, Expanding Realities, The American Center for Physics, College Park, Maryland, 2004 and Memory and Material, Maryland Arts Place, Baltimore, Maryland 2003. Selected corporate collections include The National Association of Home Builders, The Washington Post, The John A.Wilson Building City Hall Art Collection in Washington, DC, Fannie Mae, Arnold and Porter Law Firm, The Montgomery County Contemporary Art Collection and The National Institutes of Health.
After working as a professor of design at the Corcoran College of Art from 1976 to 2003, Marie Ringwald currently works full time in her studio in Washington, DC.
Exhibtion hours for Marie Ringwald "new" are Wednesday - Saturday, 12-7 PM.
The exhibition runs from March 5 - April 5. Please note that the gallery will be closed March 26-29.