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Suzi Davidoff and Rachelle Thiewes began their collaborative partnership in 1999. As artists from diverse disciplines, they found common ground in their shared interest in the landscape, pattern, light and the perception and navigation of the natural world. Their projects range from artists books to installation to video with a focus on our human interaction with the environment.

Suzi Davidoff creates drawings, paintings, prints and collaborative installations exploring themes of structure and perception of the natural world. In addition to charcoal, oil, gold leaf and ink, Davidoff uses found organic materials. Moss, clay, cochineal, earth and lichen collected on her walks are rubbed into the surface of the paper and panels, creating a physical connection between personal experience and finished work.

Rachelle Thiewes creates jewelry designed to engage and challenge the wearer, making them an active participant, an initiator of sounds and body rhythms. Light, movement, sound, order and chaos are integral elements of her work.

July 3, 2015 - February 6, 2016Main Gallery

Hours Tuesday - Thursday & Saturday: 10am-6pm

Friday: 12pm-8pm

Related Exhibition Events

12:00pm

July

8thSummer Series Lunch & LearnMary Anne Redding, TCVA Curator, discusses the RAZI Projects and the exhibition.Please join us in the Turchin Center Lecture Hall. Bring a bagged lunch and we will provide bottled water.

Davidoff and Thiewes installing one of their collaborative pieces in the Rio Grande

STREAM: RAZi ProjectsThe Collaborations of Suzi Davidoff and Rachelle Thiewes

The High Chihuahuan desert of West Texas has played a pivotal role in shaping the way we approach our individual work as artists. Although we work in different mediums, we share a strong interest in the desert, the land and the way people interact with their environments. In 1999 we formally explored these connections in a collaborative series of books titled BEAUTY . CHAOS. In this group of eight unique books we presented collections of drawn images, metal and slate objects and text which were a visual reflection of the many conversations and hikes we had taken together the previous year. Using metal, paper and charcoal for materials, we have created a series of unique books which explore patterns and layers, and their integration into our Chihuahuan desert landscape.

Common Language began with our joint residency at Fiskars Village, an artist’s cooperative in Finland. We created several site-specific installations that responded to the natural landscape and architectural/ historic structures by incorporating foreign objects/materials. Returning to the Chihuahuan desert, we continued the project as a conversation with the forested Finnish landscape.

Each installation could be experienced in person for a short time before it was dismantled or worn away by natural forces. Because of the temporary nature of the installations, the process of photography became an extension and record of the sites and a central component of our finished project.

There are three major components to the project – large-scale photographs, video and a published book. One image has been selected from each of our 20 installation sites and printed large scale directly on aluminum. Two videos are projected on adjacent walls in conjunction with the photographic installation. A hardcover book with photographs and text relating to the project and process has been published, with a special artist proof edition.

reimagining/repurposing/returning

Reimagined Landscape grew out of our photographed installations in Common Language. The images were manipulated and repurposed to invite a closer look at the landscape

as surfaceas lightas formas lineas structure

The works function as static images within a space and also have wearable segments that make the landscape part of the wearer’s physical persona.

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COMMON LANGUAGE

REiMAGiNED LANDSCAPE

BEAUTY . CHAOS

In 1999 we worked on a series of unique books titled BEAUTY . CHAOS. We found this collaboration to be challenging and exciting and decided to pursue another project, potentially continuing to explore the book.

June 16, 2002We are in the Smoky Mountains sitting on a smooth rock in the middle of a stream, contemplating our next collaborative exhibition. We talk about books – their subject matter and structure. In response to this beautifully wild, remote location, our ideas begin to change. Instead of the intimate experience one has with a hand-held book, we want the pages to become a force surrounding and enveloping the viewer – another kind of intimacy.

September 4clear concise ideasTaking man-made objects inspired by patterns in nature, layering them with actual organic forms, we study their structure, pattern and relationships.

September 10-November 20research nature structure chance natural patternsmathematical patterns layers (failure) shadow experimentprojected objects (if all else fails, we can always exhibit our individual artwork)reflection conversations projected images scale linetransparency object (frustration) place

December 3We suspend a rough-edged fabric panel in front of a large piece of paper with a Magic Marker drawing of a projected object – it has potential. It’s a good thing because every idea has failed this week and Teresa’s coming tomorrow.

January –June, 2003engineering research chance money refining technical travel resource consultation logistics elation hard physical dragsters boring manufacture conversations film relentless idea

July 16 – July 27We are drawing 10 to 12 hours a day for the next 12 days straight. Our goal is to finish the charcoal and pigment panels. Spending whole days balanced on ladders is incredibly strenuous – our entire bodies hurt. Sometimes dreams of drawing intrude on restful sleep. Still, the focus and rhythm of the work, the progress and evolution of the piece are a rush. Each day has new discoveries and challenges that could not have been predicted.

August – Septemberdetails structure logistics

September 10As we finally sit down to reflect on our journey, it is clear that not until the piece is actually installed and we are able for the first time to see AIR PATTERNS in its entirety will our project be complete. This chance to work on the edge is the essence of our collaboration.

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AiR PATTERNS

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Rachelle Thiewes creates jewelry designed to engage and challenge the wearer, making them an active participant, an initiator of sounds and body rhythms. Light, movement, sound, order and chaos are integral elements of her work. Thiewes’ art is in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Museums of Scotland, Victoria & Albert Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Museum of Arts & Design, among others. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including Calder Jewelry, The Art of the Book, Jewellery Moves, One of a Kind: American Art Jewelry, The Best in Contemporary Jewellery, Jewellery in Europe and America: New Times New Thinking, American Craft and Metalsmith. In 2009 she was named “Texas Master” by the Houston Center of Contemporary Craft and in 2010 was nominated for a United States Artist Fellowship. The Stanlee & Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts honored her with the Access & Excellence in the Arts Award in 2014. Thiewes is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship, the University of Texas Regents Outstanding Award for Teaching, and Distinguished Achievement Awards for Research and Teaching at the University of Texas El Paso where she is Professor Emerita in the Department of Art.

Suzi Davidoff is an artist based in the Chihuahuan desert of west Texas, creating drawings, paintings, prints and collaborative installations exploring themes of structure and perception of the natural world. In addition to charcoal, oil, gold leaf and ink, Davidoff uses found organic materials. Moss, clay, cochineal, earth, and lichen collected on her walks are rubbed into the surface of the paper and panels, creating a physical connection between personal experience and finished work. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the United States. Recent solo exhibitions include REGENERATION, Zane Bennett Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM and EAST SIDE AND BEYOND, Flatbed Press, Austin, TX. Selected group exhibitions include COMMON LANGUAGE, Albuquerque, NM, TEXAS DRAWS I, Southwest School of Arts and Crafts, San Antonio, TX, SECOND NATURE, Galveston Arts Center, and BEAUTY.CHAOS, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. Davidoff’s work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Department of State -- Art in Embassies Program, Hallmark Collection, Museum of Texas Tech University and the El Paso Museum of Art, among others. She has been the recipient of a Fiskars Artist’s Residency, a Mid-America NEA Fellowship and a Ford Foundation/Pollack-Siquieros Binational Art Award.

ABOUT THE ARTiSTS

SUZi DAViDOFF

RACHELLE THiEWES

(pictured right)

(pictured left)