Garrison Art Center
23 Garrison’s Landing, Garrison, NY 10524
PUNTO IN ARIA: Sculpture and Installation by Patricia Miranda
September 18 - November 7, 2021
Opening reception Saturday, September 18, from 5-7pm
Covid 19 restrictions permitting.
Contact: gallery@garrisonartcenter.org
Garrison Art Center is delighted to present PUNTO IN ARIA, a textile and sculptural
installation by Patricia Miranda. This will be Miranda’s first solo exhibition at Garrison
Art Center and, as Visiting Artist, will be exhibiting work in both galleries.
Punto in Aria (literally “stitch in air”) is an exhibition that includes monumental textile
sculpture and installation, and objects gilded with vintage and inherited gold leaf
depicting lace patterns from the collection. These materials are transformed using dyes
chosen for their long cultural history, some foraged directly from oak gall wasp nests,
cochineal insects, indigo, and clay, others sourced through suppliers. Dyestuff is left
unfiltered in the vat and the works are over-dyed multiple times, leaving raw material on
the surface. These site-responsive works expand upon the history of domestic labor
via the femininity of the lace while the visceral dyes retain a stain of their environmental
origins.
Miranda’s work is grounded in deep research into historic material practices, rituals of
grief and mourning, women’s labor, and the violence of environmental and gendered
commodification. Materials become witnesses, carriers of historical, ecological, and
cultural information that become subtext in the work. Hand-dyed and sewn into
shroud-like tapestries and installations. Layered with objects of lamentation akin to
ex-votos, reliquaries, and other ritualized forms traditionally offered to saints in request,
gratitude, or devotion. Forms are handmade using plaster, metal, hair and beads.
During the pandemic, Miranda posted studio images on social media of dyeing family
lace from the artist’s Italian and Irish grandmothers the lace with natural cochineal
insect dye. Donations of lace and linens from friends and strangers began to arrive in
her studio, unsolicited, resulting in an ongoing lace archive and research project,
currently comprising over 1500 pieces of lace. Before being incorporated into an
installation work, each piece is photographed, measured, and collected into the
archive. The offerings of lace are integral to the content of the work, tangible
participation from a community which includes family, friends and strangers from
around the world.
The Lace Archive is now a collaborative art and research project supported by an
individual artist grant received by the artist from ArtsWestchester. The project brings
people together to create monumental lace tapestries and to contribute to a historical
textile archive. The Lace Archive will be on view in the gallery in digital form and
interpreted into the lace installation.
The public is invited to add to the collection by bringing lace to the gallery throughout
the exhibition, as well as participating in family and adult workshops on Saturday,
October 23. Family workshop from 10:30 - 12:30, adult workshop from 1:30 - 4:30. An
in-gallery artist talk will follow on Oct 23 at 5:30pm.
Patricia Miranda is an artist, educator, independent curator, and founder of the artist
projects MAPSpace and The Crit Lab. She has been Visiting Artist at Vermont Studio
Center, the Heckscher Museum, and University of Utah; and been awarded residencies
at I-Park, Weir Farm, Vermont Studio Center, and Julio Valdez Printmaking Studio. She
has received artist grants from Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance, Anonymous Was a
Woman Covid19 Relief Grant, and two individual artist grants from
ArtsWestchester/New York State Council on the Arts. She was part of a year-long NEA
grant working with homeless youth in Westchester County, and in 2010 was a finalist
for an MTA Arts in Transit project in Brooklyn. She served as director and curator of the
Gallery at Concordia College-NY from 2008-12. Miranda has developed education
programs for K-12, museums, and institutions, including Franklin Furnace, the Solomon
R. Guggenheim Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and the
Smithsonian Institution. Her work has been exhibited at ODETTA Gallery, ABC No Rio,
Wave Hill, and Rio II Gallery, in NYC; The Alexey von Schlippe Gallery at UConn Avery
Point, Groton, CT; the Cape Museum of Fine Art, Cape Cod MA; the Belvedere
Museum, Vienna Austria; and Garrison Art Center, Garrison NY.
For all press inquiries and high-resolution images contact Tricia McGoey Ashlaw,
Exhibitions Coordinator, at gallery@garrisonartcenter.org
Riverside Galleries at Garrison Art Center are open Tuesday-Sunday 10am-5pm, and
located on the banks of the Hudson River, next door to the Metro-North Hudson Line,
Garrison stop, one hour from Grand Central.
For more information about exhibitions
and other programs, please visit our website www.garrisonartcenter.org or call
845.424.3960. Please join in the conversation with Garrison Art Center via Instagram
@GarrisonArtCenter