March, 2008
Mindy Weisel’s exhibition “Of Roses and Rasa,” at Prada Gallery in Washington, DC, runs from April 3 through May 17, 2008. Weisel’s first exhibition in Washington, DC since 2004, “Of Roses and Rasa” features new works on paper and glass sculpture.
Inspired by a recent trip to India, Weisel was moved and inspired by the Hindu aesthetic of “Rasa”, referring to the “essence of creativity” found in the arts: poetry, dance and painting. The fluidity, translucence and refractive qualities found in “Rasa” are evident in her new works. In her oil-based monotypes serving as the base for her new oils on paper, Weisel renders delicate roses with diaphanous overlapping petals that alternately obscure and reveal one another. In these ethereal new works, Weisel suggests the beauty and fragility of life. Weisel’s fused glass works echo an underlying transparency as it reflects light and color. Every mark on her glass sculptures, including her writing, is made with only glass: liquid glass; crushed glass; cut glass. Glass alone becomes the pigment for these works.
Weisel’s past 30 years of painting have involved a search for “light emerging from darkness”. The message from her parents, survivors of Auschwitz, was to “find beauty”. Her work over these many years attest to the survival of beauty – as is most evident in these paintings and sculptures. This aesthetic shift towards lightness is evident as Weisel’s signature cobalt blue – which saturates and weights her earlier paintings – appears more subtly in her new work. Whereas Weisel once surrounded her expressive strokes with rectilinear geometric forms, she now allows her dynamic lines to interact organically; they flow and blossom without strictly defined structure. Weisel’s new works convey light and movement, and suggest life and growth.
A published author and celebrated Washington artist, Weisel’s works are included in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum, and the Baltimore Museum of Art, among others.
Prada Gallery is open from Tuesday through Saturday from 11:00 am - 6:00pm , and Mondays by appointment only. It is located in the heart of Georgetown in Washington DC, at 1030 Wisconsin Ave., NW .
