TERRY MAKER | Traces

“In outer space the word ‘traces’ can be relevant in the search to identify subtle changes. The concept of outer space can be used as a metaphor for the very experience of art and how it can bring the hope of transporting the audience out of this world and into a place of wonder and another world beyond ‘the veil.’

Outer space can be a powerful metaphor for spiritual yearning and the idea of transcending the mundane, evoking a sense of awe. The idea of spirituality can address the physical distress (with all the struggles and disappointments, i.e., political, societal, environmental) of human existence and shares a common thread with space exploration and the search for life and meaning beyond earthly knowledge and the earthly plane.

With my process of ‘rubbing,’ I seek to pick up traces and subtle details that one might miss or fail to notice in the original source sculpture, the resin ‘mother’ art piece from which the rubbing/drawing was drawn. As the resulting imagery of the rubbing, the drawing starts to reveal itself as a recorded history of the journey, not unlike an explorer’s journal of the path/paths taken, or not taken.

I liken it to the searching and the mapping of the celestial bodies and the stellar archaeology as one traces how our galaxy and our world evolves and changes over time, ever gathering valuable information.”

• Terry Maker

With “Traces” Robischon Gallery is pleased to present its ninth solo exhibition for Colorado’s Terry Maker. An artist who lives up to her moniker of “maker,” a name seemingly bestowed by fate, she takes an adventurous approach creating her work from both traditional art and not-art sources. With equal parts material moxie and questing desire, Maker strives to understand the drivers of human psychology, artistic exploration and scientific discovery. The artist is long recognized for her generative assemblage technique of amalgamating materials into a block and then slicing through to reveal the finished artwork cross-section. Spiral, the resin and mixed media panel on view, uses repurposed paper documents re-fashioned into a textured background with giant jawbreaker candies, halved to expose their colorful, layered interiors. Using a band saw to reveal what’s inside the amalgamated blocks, Maker demonstrates just how much physicality is required to realize her chosen methodology.  

Maker’s drawings and rubbings made from her dimensional work affords her the possibility of further insight into her own inventions. By revisiting meaningful imagery in another medium with the three paired mixed media and rubbing pieces on view: Spiral / When Galaxies Collide, Field Lines / Field Line Drawing and Flux / Flux Drawing, Maker immerses herself in the delicacy of the rubbings which tend to reveal unexpected distinctions that the artist herself may not have previously taken into account. By spending additional time with the resins, work that may have before been much more physically demanding, and by adding a range of color to the drawings, the shifts in perception between the resin work and the rubbing become evident upon investigation. Maker’s revealed traces suggest an underlying energy – an animating force and charged invisibility that lies beneath. In the artist’s meticulously created “Drawn from Dust” series on soft cloth-like Evolon paper, the massive scale also makes clear that they were the result of a challenging feat for Maker.

Invoking the vastness of the celestial while contemplating human behavior, Terry Maker’s dynamic explorations into all things circular vacillate between the commonplace and the cosmic symbolizing both Heaven and earth and referencing, as the artist states, “the tension of the magnetic pull that exists and the attraction/repulsion of our current cultural climate.”  Whether reflecting the oppositional rhythms of the contemporary world or symbolizing the infinite, the circle anchors Maker’s work as emblem of humanities timeless pursuit of expansion.

Terry Maker received her BA from McMurry University, Abilene, Texas and an MFA from the University of Colorado, as well as an MA in Education from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. Her work has been exhibited in many solo museum exhibitions, including Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, CO; Museum of Art Fort Collins, Fort Collins, CO; Longmont Museum, Longmont, CO; Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and Museum; Denver Botanic Gardens, Denver, CO; University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY; and a commissioned installation at the Arvada Center for the Arts. Maker has also been featured in numerous group shows, including: Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO; Center for Curatorial Studies Museum, Bard College, Annandale-On-Hudson, NY; Center for Visual Arts Denver, Denver, CO; University of Colorado Art Museum, Boulder, CO; and the Denver International Airport, Denver, CO, as well as many others. In 1999, Maker was awarded a Fellowship by the Colorado Council on the Arts, Denver. Maker has also been featured in various publications, including Southwest Contemporary, Denver Life Magazine, The Denver Post, Westword, Image Journal of Art, Faith, and Mystery, Art in America, ArtForum, and the Austin Chronicle.