“Into the Woods,” Ann Clarke’s solo exhibition at the Gandee Gallery, provides a survey of works created by the Syracuse artist over the past 20 years. The show displays pieces made during 2023 and 2024, as well as a piece finished during 2004.
Most importantly, the exhibit documents the variety of Clarke’s work: everything from fine-art textiles to hats, from drawings to selections from her Net Series.
The exhibition presents artworks that clearly stand out. There’s an 87″ by 81″ piece from Clarke’s Interior Landscape Series, which features imagery of trees and exquisite colors — red, blue, gold and others. It was made from fulled knit wool, cotton, silk and metallic.
“Self Portrait,” from Clarke’s eye-portal series, is dominated by a striking image of an eye. It works off of notions of the eye as a portal: as a way of viewing the world; as an entrance to a soul or spirit. In creating the series, the artist was witnessing her mother who dealt first with cognitive decline and then with Alzheimer’s disease.
Elsewhere, “Deer in the Garden,” created during 2014, focuses more on a pretty garden than a voracious deer. Clarke made that work from reconstructed textiles.
And she created “My Father’s Umbrella,” a jacket, from her father’s golf umbrella, silk embroidery and applique. Over three or four years, she made several pieces recalling her dad.
The presence of works from her Net Series explores another direction in Clarke’s art. One piece, titled “Straw, Paper Clip, Origami,” was made from a found object and cotton thread.
In several instances, the exhibit displays a study which was done in preparation for a larger artwork. In creating “Cape Summer Night Study,” Clarke worked with fulled knit wool, tercel, silk with crochet edge.
While Clarke is certainly best known for her textiles, she’s also created drawings over the years. “The Heart of the Matter,” a fine portrayal of two birds, references that aspect of her work.
Beyond that, the exhibition touches on Clarke’s philosophy for her studio: waste nothing. She’s made dozens of hats from left-over material. “Into the Woods” displays a bunch of her hats.
The show does a nice job surveying Clarke’s work, particularly for viewers not familiar with her textiles. At the same time, it’s’ not intended to be a retrospective. The Gandee Gallery isn’t spacious enough to display any of the pieces from Clarke’s signature exhibit, “As Her Mind Collapsed, I Was Awaken,”
That show, consisting of five huge rugs, was exhibited at Auburn’s Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center during 2020. It focuses on Clarke’s relationship with her mother during her mom’s last years of life, on lessons of empathy learned during that time.
Nonetheless, the Gandee Gallery exhibition fulfills several objectives. It both celebrates both Clarke’s textiles and her career at Syracuse University where she taught art, served as Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts from 2008 to 2016, and then returned to the classroom for eight more years. She retired this spring as a Professor of Art.
Clarke, who’s now working full-time as an artist, has several projects in progress. She’s breaking new ground by creating artworks that will be displayed outdoors at the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park, a few miles from Cazenovia.
Given that situation, Clarke can’t utilize wool or other traditional fibers; pieces made from wool wouldn’t survive rain or snow. Therefore, she’s experimenting with wood-based fibers. She hopes to install the new works during mid-July.
In addition, she’s making eight rugs, all of them huge, for a September exhibition at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, SUNY Buffalo State University. She earned that opportunity by receiving a best-of-show award for a 2023 group exhibit at Burchfield Penney.
Clarke, it should be noted, has participated in many exhibits. She’s shown her work at the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, New Jersey; the Farm Project Gallery, Wellfleet, Massachusetts; and Gallery gen, New York City.
“Into the Woods,” meanwhile, is on display through June 23 at the Gandee Gallery, 7846 Main St. in Fabius. The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturdays, and on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
There’s no admission charge, and the public is welcome. For more information, call 315-416-6339 or access www.gandeegallery.com.
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