ART

Mining the Cracks, Drips, and Markings is an invitation to dig deeper—to peer under the surface of drips of layered paint and markings, and gaze into the enigma of cracks in glazed ceramic tiles. The selected works by two established Bay Area artists, Nancy Genn and Jim Melchert, are to be unveiled at the Sanchez Art Center in Pacifica this summer. The works represent another milestone in each artist’s long artistic career and journey of exploration and experimentation. Genn and Melchert are undisputed Bay Area treasures who continue to engage us through their inquisitive minds and their quest to push boundaries through a honed-down mastery of technique and process that redefines our understanding of what is art. In Mining the Cracks, Drips, and Markings, Genn and Melchert are paired for the first time.

A painter, printmaker, sculptor, and paper maker, Nancy Genn studied art at the University of California, Berkeley. She is considered a member of the Berkeley School of artists that flourished from the 1930s to 1950s, whose work emphasizes formal values. Her geometric abstract works have been featured in many solo exhibitions throughout the past forty years in California, Washington, and New York, as well as England, Japan, and Italy. Her newest body of work, Rainbars, large hanging scroll paintings using casein on paper and Chine-collé, are shown for the first time in this exhibition.

Jim Melchert has worked in a variety of media, including drawing, film, and ceramics, which he has transformed into fine art. Melchert is primarily known for his work in clay in ways that reveal his ties to conceptual art. As a ceramist, he has built a reputation over the past two decades that rests on a unique process of breaking ceramic tiles, drawing on them with lines that follow or run counter to the shape of the crack, glazing and re-firing the pieces, and then reassembling them into a finished artwork. In experimenting with broken tiles, Melchert is in pursuit of “truth to materials,” the uncovering of the intrinsic composition of the fractured clay slabs, and the beauty that lies in broken and ragged edges. This exhibition is a chance to learn more about the weak spots they reveal and why Melchert is fascinated with them.

Nancy Genn and Jim Melchert will discuss their work in an Artist’s Talk on Sunday, August 14, at 4pm, as part of Sanchez Art Center’s ongoing Artist/Curator Talk series, which is free to the public. Curator Hanna Regev will also participate.