A Whole Recollection
This exhibition reflects marking time within an expanded moment. While some of the work was completed before 2020, the exhibition reflects and records the past year and a half.
Nowinski’s *Divoc Daily Drawings are presented on three walls. They are organized chronologically in rows, similar to a calendar, but with eight rows of fifteen drawings on two walls and nine rows on the last. To view them in order one must start at the very top left drawing on the first wall (3/13/2020) and view them left to right as thought reading them, row by row, clockwise wall by wall. This project began on Friday March 13th, 2020 and came to a close on March 14th 2021. A year is a potent unit by which we measure our histories, memories and mark our lives. A year and a day hints at the fact that the seemingly monumental events of 2020 have by no means concluded, in fact we continue to stay sensitive, to process, to learn and to move through our lives, day by day.
The structure of the Daily Drawings allowed for immense freedom in visual expression. The parameters – each drawing on 11” x 14” paper, primarily on Rives BFK, with black and white media for the imagery. With this in place, it was decided anything could be a prompt. From the mundane, to the imagined; the observed botanical bursts of spring, Covid graphs in newspapers, grandma, a photo or poem from a dear friend in lockdown abroad, a photo of another friend’s tonsilitis, Black Lives Matter, aerosol mist, notions of isolation and unity, cairns to gain a sense of location and an idea of direction, internalized capitalism, and on and on. The pages accumulated, piled and lived layered together, in boxes, until they came out in full display here.
Also included in this exhibition is “Be Spilled, My Heart” an installation of over 160 wHoles. These drawings are on double sided on canvas and range individually from 8ft to 8 inches in diameter. The wHoles are a part of a personal visual language that has continued to be a part of my work over the last few years. Ambiguous in their origin and far ranging in scale they are based on the ubiquitous archetypal circle and are intended to evoke multiple associations. Both evading definition, they are at once recognizable or familiar and yet abstract. Together they create a topography as they crawl up or recede from the wall, regenerate or die, spill out into or pull back from the room onto the floor. The intention is for viewers to experience a kind of cathedral reaction upon entering and encountering the installation – gazes directed upward to the top of the wall almost 30’ high.
If you would like to learn more about Maggie Nowinski’s work you can find her at www.maggienowinski.org , on Instagram @maggienow or email her at maggienowinski@gmail.com. There will be an informal gallery talk/conversation with art studio students scheduled during the run of the exhibition. To view by appointment or additional information contact Lydia Hemphill lhemphill@deerfield.edu or Mercedes Taylor mtaylor@deerfield.edu
* A Footnote:
Divoc is Covid backwards, reflecting looking back to the year when the pandemic hit. There are multiple meanings to be found online (check it out), although sources are quite scattered, with varying degrees of interpretation. One meaning comes from Latin suggesting God’s Act. Another, more apt association, suggested that the root “voc” meant “to call” and “di” referred to divided – or “voc” as in voce or voice - all reflecting the divided political landscape of these times.
