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JESSICA RANKINATLANTANeedlework and fine art have always seemed to exist inseparate realms, but they're brought together in anapproach that is at once unassuming and intriguinglyprovocative in Jessica Rankin’s solo exhibition Passagesat the Savannah College of Art and Design’s Trois Galleryin Atlanta, Georgia [February 18–May 31, 2013]. In fourworks of embroidery, Rankin explores the interstices ofthese disparate realms.The four large-scale works on view, which Rankinrefers to as embroidery paintings, may evoke painterlyabstraction, but Rankin’s embroidery, stitched ontogossamer organdy fabric, seems to half-exist: delicate,fragile, ghostly, and drained of vivid color in their subtlerepresentative intent. Indeed, the wall behind the worksis still visible, enhancing their luminous quality. Thethreads drip, like paint, from one part of the work toanother, often connecting text and images into a weblikenetwork, supporting a richly unique contemporaryexploration of materials that defies traditional notions ofneedlework.Domestic embroidery was long considered part of thefemale domain. Before feminist art of the 1960s and70s this type of private work was difficult to position inthe discourse of fine art, given the greater public attentionto painting and sculpture. Drifting away from themore traditionally masculine realms of monumentalityand overt representation, with focus on the private, intimate,and contemplative spaces—ones of solitaryabsorption and personal reflections—seems to intrigueRankin the most. Time is as much her medium asorgandy and thread. With a methodical and meditativehand, Rankin makes mental associations permanent,creating maps that loosely chart abstracted memories.The artist doesn’t simply replace oil paints with thread,but her work also seems to take into account the vastassociative differences between the materials. (Thesuggested metaphor of a dual inheritance and departurefrom painting isn’t just a broadly historical one: JessicaRankin is the daughter of famed Australian painterDavid Rankin.)The organdy works in the SCAD exhibition are fromRankin’s Skyfolds series, and the text and images inthem derive from constellatory maps of dates significantto the artist. The guiding visual framework of Quis EstIste Qui Venit is gleaned from the arrangement of starson the night the artist’s mother died. Overlaying thecelestial map is vibrant chatter in the form of text, theletters often obscured or connected by loops of thread.Words here have surreal connections in both their collidingmeanings and in their substantive lines andpatterns, rooted in the artist’s interest in surrealist andconcrete poetry and likewise reminiscent of randomthought patterns. A single, conclusive meaning remainselusive, but the methodical and repetitive process ofcreation is forefront in these works, often suggestingnatural processes, a spider’s web-making, and even thepods and tendrils of the organic world. There is anintriguing openness and lack of specificity that keeps usmysteriously removed yet mystifyingly connected at thesame time.The exhibition also includes two large-scale drawingsconsisting of crosshatched pencil marks that, like theembroidery pieces, draw viewers toward contemplationof the meditative process involved in the making of theworks as much as to the finished material object. Theintricate constellatory and outrageously detailedpatterns are almost impossible to take in as singleimages, their tangled linear complexity suggesting alarger internal geography, a reflection on the act ofperception rather than the object perceived. Althoughdifficulty comes from trying to specify exactly whatRankin’s celestial maps and landscapes show us in theirinvestigations of the elusive, misty conscious andsubconscious realms, memory, and someplace betweenlegibility and indecipherability, her work suggests thatany map of the known world is also deeply personal.—Andrew AlexanderLISA SIGALBOSTONFor her first solo exhibition in Boston, Shifting Horizon atSamsøn [April 5−May 25, 2013], New York-based artistLisa Sigal engaged in her ongoing dialogue with space,place, material, and landscape. This work in particularresponded to the connections between painting andarchitecture and between measurement and scale, withthe paintings directly referencing the architecture inwhich they dwelled. Ultimately, this show offered a meditationon the range of possibilities available whenapproaching the contemporary landscape.Sigal probes the boundaries of landscape through heruse of materials and media. This viewer experiencedthese pieces as a shifting play between interior and exterior,as the assembled forms seamlessly moved betweenpainting and architecture. Sigal’s interest in marginallandscapes, their pervasiveness on the periphery, andher fascination with the overlooked was ever-present inthe work. Interested in pushing the idea of what a paintingcan be in its barest form, Sigal employed framingelements that included metal studs, screens, mountedwall sections, and images printed on Tyvek that adhereddirectly to those demarcated wall sections. The workswere firmly rooted in painting but the placement of thescreens on the floor—they leaned directly against theworks on the wall—created a sculptural element.Through her intent to directly engage with the architectureof the gallery, Sigal created a slippage between theinterior space and the spaces referenced in the imagery.This engagement offered a conversation between themateriality and illusion of place; the works acted aswindows within the gallery, revealing an ever-expandingdefinition of landscape. The screens mediated betweenactual space and the veiled digital landscapes beyond.They acted as frames; the colors painted on the screensreflected onto the floor and the other works at the sametime, veiling the images and making them more elusivewhile also acting as an extension of the site beyond thesurface of the art.The images for this show were generated from sitesincluding Los Angeles and Brooklyn. When I spoke withSigal after seeing the show, she said that she initiatedthis particular body of work in LA because she was inter-INSIDE FRONT COVER: Lisa Sigal, installation view of Shifting Horizons at Samsøn, 2013 / ABOVE, LEFT TO RIGHT: Jessica Rankin, Untitled, 2011, embroidery on organdy, 59 x 59 inches[courtesy of the artist and Trois Gallery SCAD-Atlanta]; Lisa Sigal, installation view of Shifting Horizons at Samsøn, 2013 [courtesy of the artist and Samsøn, Boston]an index to contemporary culture’s imminent historyARTPAPERS.ORG 57