'Mend: Love, Life, & Loss' group show at the Halsey

Image by MendImage by 20081023mend.jpg

Exploring the dualities things like strength and fragility through fiber, "Mend: Love, Life, & Loss" is coming to the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art.

The show kicks off at 5 p.m. Friday, October 4, with a performance by Pinky/MM Bass and Reneé Cheveallier -- that performance is recommended only for adults. But the non-R-rated rest of the show runs through December 5.

Here's the description from the Halsey:
This exhibition explores the paradoxical nature of the idea of mending--be it a human who is sick, a heart that is broken, or a profound grief over a death. The patch is often stronger than the original--hence the paradox. The artists in this show probe the dualities of strength/fragility, hope/despair, joy/grief, pretty/nasty, dainty/brutal, etc., using fiber as the key metaphor. Each of the ten nationally known artists employ the yoking of opposites as an expressive vehicle. All of the works in the show contain at least some sort of fiber--string, hair, thread, yarn, etc., Fiber is the central metaphor, as it is evidenced to be visibly fragile, yet through the mend, it becomes durable, and at times, indelible.

Ten artists are exhibiting: Adrienne Antonson (Yep, that's the same Adrienne from Eye Level Art and Charleston's Most Unique.), Pinky Bass, Jon Coffelt, Leslie Kneisel, Nava Lubelski, Preston Orr, Susan Harbage Page, Marilyn Pappas, Mireille Vautier, Rachel Wright.

The Halsey is at 54 Saint Philip Street, downtown.