Barbara Rink artist in residency at Vermont Studio Center

Wed, Nov 19 - Wed, Nov 19  2014

Vermont Studio Center - New York Consulate Region

Through November, Barbara Rink creates new work at the Vermont Studio Center. During the months before, she was artist in resident at Santa Fe Arts Institute where she created an installation. Her current work will on view during an open studio at VSC, November 19. 

About Barbara Rink

Barbara Rink is a visual artist, whose main focus is on how we relate to nature and our environment. In her paintings and recent installation works she creates intimate universes that come into being through re-shaping, cutting, folding and collapsing. She mixes threads from the worlds of physics, nature, dreams myth and art history; recreating worlds where plants or animals have dominion over the earth and man is but a small piece of the puzzle.

About her Work at SFAI 

This fall, Barbara Rink started a two- month artist in residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute. This residency was followed by another residency at the Vermont Studio Centre (VSC). At VSC, she will stay through November. During her residencies, Rink takes time and space for experiment. Her main medium is painting, but during her residence in Santa Fe she created an installation. At the beginning of her residency in Santa Fe, Rink’s work was on view during an open studio and the group-show ‘Shared Grounds’ with the other resident artists.

Rink started working on the installation out of her fascination for polyhedra (platonic solids) shapes, especially folded shapes in single sheet origami. While working, she drew upon inspiration from John Montroll’s origami book and her memories of Christmas and playing with small dolls and Playmobil in the Christmas tree – creating a universe where she could disappear in for hours on end.

Her aim for this work was to create an installation being a universe in itself, collapsing and unfolding, with lightness and its own energy. Fragile yet inviting, like a space you are attracted to, but unsure whether you will be allowed to enter. Also the work references to the environment of New Mexico: it reminds of the earth ships and other strange architecture in the landscape; as well as dreams of other people who dreamed of desserts where shapes suddenly appear after a sea of nothingness and vastness. Due to travelling light on the plane, the whole installation is made out of paper, yarn and photo prints.

Barbara Rink, working at VSC. Photo by Minjin Kang.

About her work at VSC

In Vermont, Rink works on an installation of drawings. This work evolves from the installation at SFAI: it has started as a part of the installation. The work will consist of many paper rolls, standing upright with sticks drawn on them, life size. The sticks and this work have references to a Germanic Myth and A Scandinavian one, which are overlapping in Ideas. It is the myth of Huldra and frau Holle, and in Rink’s vision, they talk about bridging domestication and wildness. The installation, when finished, will fill the room and allow public to walk through it. With the fragile nature of the work, (delicate sticks on drawn paper), Rink hopes to create an experience, almost like a ritualistic or ceremonial experience, measuring themselves to the sticks, and therefore measuring their own wildness.