LOS ANGELES, CA.- Craft in America is presenting a female-led exhibition investigating the concept of place in relation to personal narrative, identity, and materiality. Location Services: Jewelry Perspectives on Time & Place spotlights three distinct points of view on place through the lens of contemporary jewelry. This exhibition brings together the work of Motoko Furuhashi, Kerianne Quick, and Demitra Thomloudis and features an on-site collaborative research space shared between the artists. Viewers will be invited into the process through interactive features of the artists’ work.
Location Services looks at site as inspiration, as material, and as a point of interaction through three distinct craft practices. Through the creation of wearables, the three artists promote a conversation about place.
Furuhashi, Quick, and Thomloudis share a common interest in site, place, and origin. Approaching this shared subject from three distinct perspectives, the artists construct a holistic view through crafted responses, which are unequivocally individual. Motoko Furuhashi uses direct experiences to capture the physical and non-physical memories of selected locations. By collecting material directly from the site and creating through performative actions, Furuhashi claims site as an extension of her studio. Furuhashi’s collection of surfaces are applied to jewelry, bringing site directly to the wearers body. Kerianne Quick focuses on material origins, histories, and supply chain information to bring the wearer/viewer an expanded perspective. Connecting to the history of jewelry as objects of remembrance – the work reminds us that history is present, even when it is unseen. Demitra Thomloudis pushes and plays with scale, placement, materials, and form to capture facets of the places we reside, visit, and explore. Her work reveals the consideration of site within the construct of jewelry and creates the opportunity to examine aspects of place, identity, value, and material sign systems.
Motoko Furuhashi was born in Tokyo, Japan. She received an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Currently, she teaches at New Mexico State University. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, the Oakland Museum of California, Alliages Contemporary Art Jewellery in Lille, France and Nobana Art Works in Ginza in Tokyo, Japan.
Kerianne Quick is a third generation Los Angelina, and Assistant Professor of Art at San Diego State University. She received her BA with an emphasis in Jewelry and Metalsmithing at San Diego State University, and her MFA in Metals from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Highlights from her exhibition record include the National Museum for Women in the Arts, the Museum of Art and Design in New York, Museo Franz Mayer in Mexico City, the Salon del Mobile in Milan, and Design Week Amsterdam. Her work is included in major collections such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Design Museum den Bosch (formerly Stedelijk).
Demitra Thomloudis is a studio jeweler and an assistant professor in the jewelry and metalwork area at the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia. Her exhibition record includes predominant institutions such as the Museum of Arts and Design in New York; The Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece; The Museum for Modern Art in Arnhem, Netherlands; The Hellenic Museum in Melbourne, Australia and the Franz Mayer Museum in Mexico City, Mexico.
