CHRISTINA BOTHWELL | Luminous Dreams In Cataclysmic Times
February 12 – April 3, 2021
opening in-gallery & online Friday, February 12, 2021

OPENING CONVERSATION WITH CHRISTINA BOTHWELL & ROBIN SCHWARTZ
Thursday, February 18, 5:30-6:30pm EST via ZOOM

New York -- Heller Gallery is pleased to announce our fourth solo exhibition of new work by Christina Bothwell.  The exhibition features more than a dozen pieces, made over the course of the last year, as the artist is processing the societal upheaval of 2020.  Bothwell explicitly titled the exhibition Luminous Dreams in Cataclysmic Times.

In a time when conventions of surface beauty dominate, Christina Bothwell is fascinated with what lies beneath the surface.  Even though her sculptures depict creatures and beings that are different from the traditional concept of ‘normal,’ they are imbued with a vulnerable and compelling humanity.  

Bothwell’s pieces are spiritual and emotional confessions, which meld her somnambulistic visions, her extraordinary empathy and her observations of a world in chaos into material objects, which most often take the form of fantastic beings and strange creatures.  Working with cast glass and raku fired clay, and sometimes embellishing with oil-painted flourishes, she wrings a gentle magic from these old and honored processes. 

Bothwell says that “over this past year many issues have been a source of stress, anxiety and fear: the pandemic, our political world, and the economy. Art has always been a form of retreat for me.  I view my studio time as an anchor, a compass that orients me toward the things in life that feel good and bring me joy. I collect moments throughout the day that remind me that life is a gift, that happiness is available and is all around us, if only we take the time to notice.  My art is a prayer for a return to innocence and peace, a vision of wholeness in the face of chaos.”

Christina Bothwell studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, PA. She began to work three-dimensionally in 1995, first with clay and in 1999, with glass, after taking a glass casting workshop at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY.  She has won numerous scholarships and grants including a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and a Virginia A. Groot Foundation award for excellence in sculpture.  Her sculpture has been extensively exhibited and privately collected across the United States, in Europe and Asia.  Bothwell’s work is held in permanent public collections such as the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning NY; Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI; the Shanghai Museum of Glass, Shanghai, China; the Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL, the Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA, the Alexander Tutsek - Stiftung foundation, Munich, Germany.

© Heller Gallery, New York, NY 2021

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