Blueprint, a three-person exhibit inspired by a prize-winning British novel, is on view at the Burns Art Atrium Gallery in the Visual Arts Building through Feb. 27.
Featured are works by painter Sharon Butler, installation artist Peter Dudek and sculptor Victoria Palermo.
An artists’ talk is scheduled for Feb. 20, 3:30-4:30 p.m., with a reception immediately following.
The exhibition was conceived and curated by artist Brece Honeycutt of Sheffield, Mass., and New York. It uses Simon Mawer’s The Glass Room as “an architectural guide to examine, juxtapose and unite the works” of the artists.
The 2009 book, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, is about life in a modernist Czech villa built in 1928. It drew its inspiration from a real-life villa designed by master architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
“Throughout Mawer’s book, the concepts, structures and images from the artists’ works are made manifest,” Honeycutt said. “It is almost as if Mawer had the layered architectural shapes of Butler’s canvases, the three-dimensional constructivist landscapes by Dudek or the vibrant planes of Palermo's structures in his mind’s eye as he wrote.”
A copy of The Glass Room is available as a reference in the gallery.
Butler’s paintings are both on unstretched and stretched canvas. Dudek’s installation is site-specific. Palermo’s sculptures, grouped on architecturally designed bases, serve as a bridge between Butler’s wall work and the ground work of Dudek.
All of the artists have exhibited widely. Butler, of New York City and Connecticut, has presented in New York City, Hudson and Seattle. She publishes the influential arts blog Two Coats of Paint.
Dudek has exhibited at galleries in the U.S. and Reykjavik, Iceland. He teaches sculpture at the School of Visual Arts and Hunter College in New York.
Palermo, who teaches sculpture at Skidmore and Adirondack Community College, has participated in shows in Saratoga Springs, Lenox, Mass. and Los Angeles. She installed a permanent bus shelter – Bus Stand, commissioned by Kidspace at MASS MoCA – in North Adams, Mass.