British-Trained Artist Garth Evans to Exhibit Sculpture and Works on Paper at Holy Cross Cantor Art Gallery

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery at the College of the Holy Cross will present Garth Evans, Materials Being from Thursday, Nov. 11, 2004 – Saturday, Feb. 5, 2005.

The exhibition consists of 14 abstract and figural sculptures that have not been previously shown in museums or galleries. Created in the 1990s, all of the sculptures are large-scale, reaching up to five feet in height and six feet in length. Also included will be a group of 20 drawings and five recent ceramic portrait sculptures.

An illustrated catalog with essays by Garth Evans; Leila Philip, Holy Cross English Professor; and David Cohen, art critic and gallery director at the New York Studio School, will accompany the exhibition. In addition, a series of public events in conjunction with the exhibit will be held at the Cantor Art Gallery:

* Gallery Talk by Garth Evans: Tuesday, Nov. 16, 4 – 5 p.m. * Opening Reception: Tuesday, Nov. 16, from 5 – 6 p.m.

About the artist:

British-trained sculptor Garth Evans is Head of Sculpture at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. His work is included in numerous public collections including the Brooklyn Museum, N.Y.; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, N.Y.; The Museum of Modern Art, N.Y.; The Tate Gallery, London; The British Museum, London; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Conn.

Evans studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London University, in the late 1950s. As an art student, he modeled and drew the human figure — later abandoning the figure in favor of non-objective abstract art, a trend that was sweeping American and European art schools at the time. After earning his degree, Evans began exhibiting his sculpture, drawings and large-scale, floor-hugging installations throughout London, gaining considerable notice by galleries and critics in both London and New York. As a result, his work was shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in England and the United States, including two group shows at the Museum of Modern Art in the late 1960s.

In 1979, Evans moved to the United States where he accepted a teaching position at Mount Holyoke College, in South Hadley, Mass. His time at Mount Holyoke provided the foundation for much of the work being exhibited in Materials Being. Currently living and working in Woodstock, Conn., Evans has remained a New England resident ever since.

Around 1981 — while retaining the spontaneity and ambiguity of abstract form — Evans' original interest in figural expression materialized again in his work. It was during this period, while in residency at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., that he created a series of over forty collages made from ink drawings and torn paper. These collages, later named the Yaddo Drawings, were evocative of natural forms, granite boulders, Massachusetts landscapes, or biomorphic or cellular life forms.

In the early 1990s, Evans' sculpture began to shift away from the geometric plywood constructions for which he was known at the time, toward more organic objects that were prefigured by the 1980s "Yaddo" collages. The 14 floor-hugging sculptures in Garth Evans, Materials Being are the entire body of this series.

About the sculpture process:

In a manner reminiscent of the geodesic structures invented by Buckminster Fuller, Evans' sculptures are constructed by joining small (two to three inches) cardboard triangles — cut from boxes — one at a time to hundreds of other triangles to create shell-like curvilinear hollow forms. The resulting sculpture looks almost as if it might have been grown, or weathered, into being rather than executed from a predetermined or a preplanned model. The entire surface of the sculpture is then painted with a thick viscous fiberglass coating. In some areas the coating obscures the material of the cardboard support under it, and in other areas it remains a honey-colored clear varnish that enhances the random graphic elements found on the surface of the cardboard, such as serial numbers, product names, and bar codes.

Gallery information: The hours for the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery are Monday – Friday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 p.m. – 5 p.m. Located in O'Kane Hall, 1st Floor, College of the Holy Cross, 1 College Street, Worcester, MA, 01610. Admission to the gallery is free. Public parking is located on Linden Lane, gate 2, off College Street.

The gallery will be closed to the public from Nov. 24 – 27, for Thanksgiving; from Dec. 17 – Jan. 8, for Christmas; and Jan. 15, for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Please call for an appointment to view the exhibition during closed periods.