February 6 – 28, 2016
Making a living as a master wood worker, Joe Peppe builds cabinets and furniture of a tall order. In actualizing designers’ drawings or re-creating period pieces, the leftover wood hanging around the shop inspires playful consideration. Recently at his house, Joe pulled out a set of wood lamps he had just finished. Russell and I looked at each other knowingly. For February, when the days are short and the nights long, we invited Joe to make a series of lamps to be on exhibit in our project space, Joe’s wood sculpture lamps providing light on long mid-winter nights.
Ben Sisto collects used books for disassembling and re-displaying. This series, Pressure Burns includes carefully edited pages from a book bought from Manhattan’s Strand Bookstore.
In the 19th century, wood pulp paper was invented as a less expensive resource for bookmaking and newsprint. Papers used for books were bleached for whiteness, but, as decades pass, lignin, the natural binder in the wood pulp, oxidizes changing the color of the page from white to yellow or brown.
Sisto’s selections bring attention to random pressure marks created by years of stacking or shelving the books, preserving areas of original white. Each page mysteriously beautiful; upon viewing one can experience the illumination of time in a moment.
Additional images from the exhibit can be found here.
Lamps and framed works on paper from the exhibit are for sale.
Inquiries: exhibits@russelljanis.com
Price list available here.