Refraction was a collaborative site-specific installation by Megan Suttles & Eric Tollefson at the UnScene Art Show in New York City exhibited during Armory week in the Spring of 2015.
Megan Suttles/Eric Tollefson
Refraction is a site-specific work with tensional relationships stemming from multiple origins that seeks to define a space architecturally by combining one space into another. Through the juxtaposition and repetition of two unlikely materials, monofilament and silver leaf, the materiality of each is masked and transformed. The armature of the piece is simultaneously defining itself and breaking free from itself.
This collaboration stems from one artist being inspired by and moved to connect to the other and in turn reciprocated and fed into an upward spiral.
About Megan Suttles and Eric Tollefson
Megan Suttles is a Brooklyn-based-artist and the Founder, Owner, and Curator of Hot Wood Arts. Hot Wood Arts is a 7,000-square-foot space inside the Civil War-era Beard Street Warehouse building in Red Hook, Brooklyn. It is an arts collective that was developed to encourage collaboration, inspiration, and friendship in an urban environment. Hot Wood Arts contains 16 visual artists workspaces, a recording studio, a shared work area with tools and other equipment, an art gallery, and a stage for performances. One-year leases are granted to 15 chosen artists, who are known as the facility's “residents”. Through the center, Megan curates gallery shows, performances, and hosts resident artists’ open studios.
Her individual artwork is mostly based on anxiety and control. She has been exploring the eternal struggle between restraint and disorder: the way we tend to conceal our inner confusion with the outward appearance of refinement and perfection. Her work has become focused on revealing this chaos; making the invisible visible again. She works mostly with everyday materials such as aluminum tubing, packing tape, monofilament, L-brackets, and hose clamps. Through gestural installations, she reveals her understanding of the difference between uncertainty and certainty. Megan’s work has been exhibited in such places as The UnFair in New York City, The Shore Institute of Contemporary Arts in Asbury Park New Jersey, The Governor’s Island Art Fair, Hunter College in New York City, Pratt Institute in Brooklyn New York, and The OK Hotel in Seattle Washington.
www.megansuttles.com
Eric Michael Tollefson is a New York City based artist and photographer and a life-long veteran frame maker and restorer. An expert in the aesthetic and technical aspects of custom frame design and fabrication, gilding, and restoration Eric has supervised production, finishing and fabrication for companies in the Midwest and New York for over two decades.
Being fed on the idea of art and its complete saturation of the everyday at a very young age gave Eric a rarified perspective. It’s a perspective informed by growing up in an urban Midwestern converted warehouse live/work/gallery space in the early 70’s; a life that has helped shaped his work as a photographer and as a designer of frames and objects. In his photography the goal is never the simple capturing of a moment but rather the idea of that moment, the soul of its surroundings bringing full focus to the greater scene at hand. And in his designs and fabrication a never-ending pursuit of finding the simplest way to convey a beautiful idea and always bringing the hand of the craftsman to the forefront.
For 15 years he has been a contributing writer at Picture Framing Magazine and has taught courses in gilding, ornament application, frame finishing, restoration, and conservation at conferences throughout the country.
Since joining Gill & Lagodich seven years ago as Studio Director and operations manager, Eric’s specialized expertise has proved invaluable in providing creative framing solutions and correct historical applications working with numerous museums, artists and collectors.
www.ericmichaeltollefson.com
www.redesignstudio.com
