NAPA, CA.- Intertwine is an immersive, site-specific sculptural environment responding to
di Rosa’s unique Carneros landscape, who invites you to experience this radical, genre-bending installation fusing visual, sculptural, audio, and textual elements starting today through June 2, 2024.
Intertwine is the collaborative work of LIGHTFAST, a quartet of artists including visual artists Danae Mattes and Christel Dillbohner, cellist Monica Scott, and author Sylvia Brownrigg. After decades of pursuing their crafts separately, these women united to push the boundaries of medium and genre while conducting deep explorations of time, light, and place.
“This exciting project continues di Rosa’s soft residency program,” states Associate Curator Twyla Ruby. “LIGHTFAST spent months exploring our 217-acre property, collecting images and materials, channeling its changing patterns, conditions, and moods over time. The result is an immersive sculptural environment speaking to this unique site and the interchange between art and nature.”
The exhibition comprises varied elements including liquid clay evaporation pools mirroring the Earth’s water cycles, flanked by a large-scale cut paper silhouette evoking a primeval forest. At the same time, an interactive sound sculpture conjures the mystery of birds in flight. Vines suspended from the ceiling form a sculptural drawing evoking the nature of growth, while lyrical texts reflect on the lost and the found, and unseen paths in the wilderness. Additionally, a series of experimental short films explore di Rosa’s varied landscape: its water and light, its flora and fauna, its natural and human history.
THE ARTISTS
Sylvia Brownrigg is the author of acclaimed works of fiction including the novels Morality Tale; The Delivery Room, winner of the Northern California Book Award; Pages for You, winner of the Lambda Award, and its sequel Pages for Her; and a collection of stories, Ten Women Who Shook the World. Her prose pieces Invisible Countries were published in 2017 alongside artwork by Tacita Dean. Brownrigg’s books have been included in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times lists of notable fictions and have been translated into several languages. Her novel for children, Kepler’s Dream, was turned into an independent feature film. Her reviews have appeared in the Guardian, the New York Times, and the LA Review of Books. Brownrigg’s new memoir, The Whole Staggering Mystery, will be published by Counterpoint in April 2024.
Christel Dillbohner is a painter and installation artist who hails from Cologne, Germany. In 1987 she moved to California, where she began to expand her material language by exploring the use of wax and sculpted paper, turning found materials into handmade books and assemblages. Her visual research is deeply involved with the relationship between personal and cultural memory and the human struggle to live in threatened environments. She has presented her work in numerous installations and collaborative projects in the USA, Europe, and Japan. As an associate of the Institute of Cultural Inquiry, Los Angeles, she co-edited with Lise Patt the anthology Searching for Sebald: Photography After W.G. Sebald (ICI Press, 2007). In 2015, The Circum-Navigators, a collaborative project with visual artist Danae Mattes was presented at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Ca.
Danae Mattes is a visual artist working in Berkeley, California. Her mixed media sculpture and paintings have explored environmental concerns such as the earth’s water cycle and our place within it. In the 1990’s Mattes was awarded several grants in Germany from the Ministry of Culture in Kiel, followed by residencies at the European Ceramics Work Center in s’Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands, and the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France. Her collaborative work includes The Circum-Navigators at Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union Library with Christel Dillbohner in 2015, a Lucas Artist’s Residency in 2018 at the Montalvo Center for the Arts, Saratoga, California with Hope Mohr Dance and musician Henry Threadgill, and she is currently a member of the LIGHTFAST quartet. These ongoing collaborations have extended her studio explorations to include performance, photography, and film. Selected Museum collections include the deYoung Museum of Art in San Francisco, California, the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California, and the San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, California.
Monica Scott has performed throughout the United States, in almost every European country, Argentina, Canada and South Korea, engaging audiences with her energetic, eloquent playing. Since moving to the Bay Area in 1998, Monica has been actively promoting new music – as a member of sfSound, and performing with Composers’ Inc., the Composers Alliance, and in numerous chamber music groups; she was the cellist of the award-winning San Francisco-based Del Sol String Quartet from 2001-2005. In 2006 Monica formed the cello-piano duo martha & monica with pianist Hadley McCarroll. For the ensemble work incorporated into LIGHTFAST: Intertwine, Monica received a Musical Grant Program award from IntermusicSF. Besides her creative work, Monica is a devoted teacher, with a large private cello studio. She holds a Bachelor in Music from Oberlin College Conservatory and the Soloist’s Diploma from the Sweelinck Conservatorium, Amsterdam.
In 2022 LIGHTFAST presented a series of immersive live performances at Dresher Ensemble Studio in Oakland, the Bay Area Book Festival at the Marsh Theater in Berkeley, and the Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco. The quartet was invited to the 2023 Lucas Artist Residency Program, Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, CA, to develop the new material for LIGHTFAST: Intertwine now premiering here at the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art.
