For Immediate Release:

Media Contact: Melissa Caldwell 
215 545 4302 x 13


A Collaboration Featuring Anna Boothe and Nancy Cohen
 
June 1 through August 20, 2017
Public Reception: June 8, 6 to 8 pm
Artist talk: June 7, 3pm
 
Philadelphia PA: The Philadelphia Art Alliance, located just off of Rittenhouse Square in Center City, is pleased to present Permutations, a collaborative installation by Philadelphia and New
York area sculptors Anna Boothe and Nancy Cohen. Since 2012, they have collaborated on an evolving project entitled "Between Seeing and Knowing". The first segment of the project, parts for which were fabricated during a collaborative residency at the Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass, culminated in a large-scale installation that was exhibited at Accola Griefen Gallery in Chelsea, NYC in 2013.  

 
Anna Boothe and Nancy Cohen, Between Seeing and Knowing, 2013-2017; Glass Installation; dimensions variable. Photo: Rob van Erve.
 
This extensive piece, comprised of hundreds of glass objects, takes as a starting point the artists' long standing interest in Tibetan Buddhist paintings and the integration of their otherwise very separate studio practices. The installation reinterprets the symbolism in these Buddhist paintings to create a work that reflects the organizational structure and palette of the paintings, as well as the sense of expansiveness that is characteristic of Buddhist ideology.
 
The works featured in this exhibition use a variety of techniques, such as kiln-casting, slumping, fusing, blowing, hot-sculpting and sand-casting. The comprehensive understanding of these processes, each selected to achieve a specific result for every single element, is the result of working in the medium of glass for both artists: Boothe for over 35 years and Cohen for more than 20.
 
Anna Boothe and Nancy Cohen, Between Seeing and Knowing (detail), 2013-2017; Glass Installation; dimensions variable. Photo: Edward Fausty.

For this exhibition at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, Boothe and Cohen have enlarged the original project in response to the architectural details and natural light in the first floor galleries of PAA's Wetherill mansion. Once a historic home, the galleries have retained much of their original features as a sitting room, parlor and library.
 
Exhibited in the adjacent gallery are a series of new works on paper, sculptures inspired by the original project, and individual wall installations that combine both the two dimensional and three dimensional works. The process of kiln-casting glass, as seen in "Between Seeing and Knowing", involves first sculpting forms in wax that are to be transposed into glass. In the most recent development and furtherance of their project, the artists use these wax elements as tools of inspiration and physical catalysts in the creation of a series of mono-prints. Just as "Between and Seeing and Knowing" makes tactile sense of natural (and spiritually metaphoric) order via its landscape presentation, the new works seek a reconciliation between an external and internal comprehension of natural forces. 
 

                                          Anna Boothe and Nancy Cohen, Cumuli, 2017; Glass, paper and
                                          wire Installation; 72 x 50 x 8 inches. Photo courtesy of the artists.
 
Anna Boothe
 
Anna Boothe received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and a MFA from Tyler School of Art at Temple University. Her primarily kiln-cast sculpture has been exhibited at many museum venues including the Tittot Glass Art and Bergstrom-Mahler Museums, Museum of American Glass, and Kentucky Museum of Art and Design, and is included in the permanent collections of the Corning Museum of Glass and the Tacoma Museum of Art.

Boothe taught for 16 years in the glass program at Tyler School of Art. She helped develop and chaired the glass art degree at Salem Community College, NJ where she
also
oversaw its International Flameworking Conference. She has lectured and taught at numerous schools, including the Corning Museum of Glass, Pittsburgh Glass Center, Urban Glass, Pilchuck Glass School, Rhode Island School of Design, Rochester Institute of Technology, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Wisconsin at Madison, Illinois State University, Illinois Wesleyan University, Sheridan College, Toronto, and the Everhart Museum, PA, as well as at schools in Belgium, Israel, Japan, Switzerland and Turkey. Boothe served on the Glass Art Society Board of Directors and as President of the organization, and until recently, as the Director of Glass at Philadelphia's National Liberty Museum where she curated glass exhibits and organized the ongoing Glass Now auction events.

Recently, for an ongoing collaboration entitled the Scent Project, begun in 2015, Boothe's cast flacons were shown with Frances Middendorf's paintings and Leonardo Opali's perfumes at the Downing- Yudain Gallery in Stamford, CT, the Villas Pojana and Cornaro near Venice, Italy, and at the Tambaran Gallery in New York, NY.
 
Nancy Cohen

Nancy Cohen's work has been widely exhibited throughout the United States and is represented in important collections, such as The Montclair Museum, The Newark Public Library, The Weatherspoon Art Gallery, Yale University Art Gallery and The Zimmerli Museum. She has completed numerous large-scale, site-specific projects including for Thomas Paine Park in lower Manhattan, The Staten Island Botanical Garden at Snug Harbor, The Ross Woodward School in New Haven, CT, The Noyes Museum of Art in Oceanville, NJ, The Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, NY, Park HaGalil in Karmiel, Israel, and for Howard University in Washington DC.

Cohen's work has been reviewed in books and periodicals, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, ArtNews, American Craft, Glass Quarterly and Sculpture Magazine. Awards include five fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, two fellowships from the Brodsky Center, a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant, an ISE Cultural Foundation Grant and a workspace residency from Dieu Donné. She has been awarded residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, The Millay Colony, The Archie Bray Foundation, The Pilchuck Glass School, Wheaton Arts, Bullseye Glass and The Studio at Corning. She currently teaches at Queens College and Pratt Institute.

Her most recent installation Hackensack Dreaming was exhibited at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, New Jersey City University, Jersey City, NJ, The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Philadelphia, PA, and The Power Plant Gallery at Duke University, Raleigh, NC.
 
 
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The Philadelphia Art Alliance is dedicated to the advancement and appreciation of innovative contemporary art with a focus on craft and design, and to inspiring dynamic interaction between audiences and artists.
 
The Philadelphia Art Alliance is located at 251 S. 18th St., Philadelphia, PA 19103.
 
Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 12 to 6pm; Suggested Donation: $5 for adults, $3 for students and seniors
 
For press images, please contact Melissa Caldwell at [email protected] or call 215 545 4302 x 13
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