Kathleen Schneider. Bird Over America

About

The title refers to the complexities of human and bird migration in the Americas. Against this backdrop Schneider questions the painful reality of who has the right to move across borders and who doesn’t.

All works in the exhibition activate the expressive, conceptual, and formal potential of lines. By knotting strips of wool felt over semi-rigid lengths of wire, the artist constructs lines from which individual works are braided, woven, or netted into, forming animated gestures.

Year Long, the largest sculptural piece in the exhibition, is a wave-like proliferation of colorful parallel lines. From a distance this stippled and striped field suggests vibrating strings of text. Each strand is wooly and obsessively textured — begging to be touched . The piece No Borders , No Fences, No Walls is based on an excerpt from Robbie Robertson’s song Unbound and consists of the title phrase formed from woven wool and wire. The phrase is also the title of a poliptic collage that visualizes vine-like tangled rope in the form of a jagged line. Black Bird Fly is a tightly woven rectangular fragment composed of black and white stripes. Underneath, an attached loop of wire reaches into the surrounding space, forming an arm or wing-like extension.

The works in Bird in America are not directly political. Several artworks composed of three-dimensional text act as an anchor for the remaining textile-based sculptures that are abstract and concerned with formal issues of color, line, texture, movement and levity. The artist’s intention is to provoke thought and provide pleasure while giving voice to the ambiguity of loving life in a cultural climate of fear and intimidation.