In the words of artist Leslie Shellow, “The natural world can be beautiful yet destructive, awe-inspiring yet heart-breaking, tender yet abrasive.” Shellow expresses these and other dynamic tensions through installations and low-relief works on paper that combine drawing, poured pigment and delicate cut-outs. Her work is featured in a new solo exhibition at the Community Center Art Gallery. Many of the pieces in the show are part of a body of work that Shellow calls The Substance of Matter. She writes, it is “a series of works that resulted from my observations of three elements in nature: water, air and rocks.” Hovering between abstraction and representation, the rock pieces were inspired by glimpses of stone slowly unveiled by the sun from beneath a thick blanket of snow. Shellow created them during a winter residency in Wyoming in 2018. “Most of the rocks I encountered were igneous rocks formed through the cooling and hardening of molten lava from volcanic eruptions millions of years ago,” Shellow comments. The red rocks, called scoria, had deep rich red colors charred by the spontaneous ignition of coal underground. The rocks, Shellow observed, provided a profound, tangible connection to “the entire geological history of the earth.” Air is represented in a major wall piece inspired by the flight of chimney swifts in the Hampden neighborhood of Baltimore where the artist resides. Entitled Instinctive Navigation, the piece includes about 950 individual abstract birds depicting the animals’ spiraling motion as they prepare to dive into the chimney of a former book-binding factory. The birds are composed of lasercut Japanese wood veneer paper. Each bird is dipped in melted wax and attached to the wall with an entomological pin. Behind the birds, a design is painted directly on the wall to represent what the artist imagines “is happening to the air as a result of the many bodies careening through space.” Shellow and her assistant Ae Yun Kim devoted two days of meticulous work to the installation of this immersive piece. Visitor Angella Foster commented, “Stunning…makes me want to dance.” Shellow represents water indirectly in two, frameless wall pieces depicting its interaction with other organic elements. Mineral Pool was inspired by the hot springs in Yellowstone National Park. Stillness in Motion conveys the texture of aquatic plant life. “I am interested in the vulnerability of the sea grass,” Shellow writes, “and how it allows the water to determine its direction. It does not resist. It is at the mercy of the water, as is everything.” Like many Greenbelters, Shellow practices the close observation of nature. “I tend to be keenly in tune with my surroundings,” she writes, “which can be beneficial, yet overwhelming due to the expansive visual stimuli within the world. Regardless, this is what drives my desire to work slowly and methodically, meditatively building one small element on top of another.” In addition to the specificities of an individual subject, close study reveals to Shellow the working of several forces in nature: “attraction, repulsion, contraction, expansion, growth, decay, beauty and ugliness,” all of which find a place in her work. Shellow teaches drawing at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
She is a three-time recipient of Individual Artist grants for works on paper from the Maryland State Arts Council. Her work has been exhibited previously at venues including the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Goucher College, Loyola University of Maryland, the National Institutes of Health and the Arlington Arts Center.
Intricacies and Polarities: Meditations on the Natural World by Leslie Shellow will remain on view through Sunday, June 2. The Community Center Art Gallery is open daily when not reserved: Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. For additional information, call 301-397-2208. This exhibition is presented by the Greenbelt Recreation Arts program with support from the Maryland State Arts Council.
Nicole DeWald is the arts supervisor for the City of Greenbelt
Water, Air and Rocks: Artist’s Exhibit Sparked by Nature
Leslie Shellow works on Aesthetic Erosion.