Amy Levek Featured at Stronghouse Gallery for Art Walk, 2/6

03 Feb Amy Levek Featured at Stronghouse Gallery for Art Walk, 2/6

Telluride Monks, Amy Levek

The Chimera of legend was a monstrous, fire-breathing creature composed of the parts of three animals, a lion, a snake and a goat. Today the term has come to describe any fictional beast with parts taken from various critters and/or something perceived as wildly imaginative.

Amy Levek‘s new work, aptly named “Chimera: 2D/3D,” fits both contemporary definitions to a “T.” Her latest show features mixed-media sculpture created from photographs, which she prints on to fabrics such as cotton and organza, layering the translucent images and materials to achieve different beguiling effects. Some of the images are sewn onto aluminum creating 3D works by bending and stitching together disparate elements.

“I started layering fabric photos together when I noticed how fabric photos stacked on my work table were accidentally creating a whole new world of images. I was no longer limited by the particular story being told in the original image.”

“Chimeras: 2D/3D” opens with Telluride Arts‘ First Thursday Art Walk, a festive celebration of the arts in downtown Telluride for art lovers, community and friends. Seventeen different venues host receptions introduce their new exhibitions and artists. Amy’s show takes place at the Stronghouse Studios & Gallery,  February 6, 5 – 8 p.m. for the artist’s reception.

(A free Art Walk Map offers a self-guided tour that can be used at any time to find galleries that are open most days.  Listen to Open Art Radio on KOTO from 12-1pm on first Thursdays to hear interviews with the artists. Maps are available at participating venues and at the Telluride Arts offices located in the Stronghouse Studios + Gallery at 283 South Fir Street.)

Opening, by Amy Levek

Although photographic images are the trigger, Amy Levek’s “Chimeras” are not about the narrative content found in conventional landscapes and portraits. Instead, by exploiting hidden things and quirks in the world around us – the varying textures, lines and colors, found in subjects as diverse as rusting metal on a car door, piles of glass and steel found at junkyards, any parts of a familiar whole – she ends up creating a body of work that explores the mysterious and wondrous space between illusion and reality.

In short, the new body of work is an extension of Amy’s active imagination, always picking its objects and recombining them in unexpected ways. “Chimera” is, in other words, a delightful surprise that keeps on giving as the nuances of work reveal themselves over time.

More about Amy Levek:

The arc of Amy’s journey began in nursery school, where she once described being happiest “with my hands covered with paint or clay or knee-deep in construction paper or paste.” In college, she minored in fine arts, especially painting, majoring in geology, which she describes – artistically of course – as “the weaving together of the earth’s history, theories of dynamic forces at work, and the aesthetics of the natural world.”

Later, at the University of Pennsylvania, Amy went on to investigate environmental planning, which included landscape architecture and citizen participation (how people are involved in making social decisions). Those studies laid the groundwork for what became her career path in Telluride, beginning in the mid-1990s as a planning consultant and eventual team leader for the original Cultural Master Plan, laying the groundwork for Telluride’s new status as a Colorado Creative District.

Seen, by Amy Levek

“For me, it was a revelation how important the arts are to community and economy of the place. I also realized the arts had very little political representation. After the adoption of Cultural Master Plan, I became an arts advocate and got more involved in politics.”

Amy was elected to Town Council in 1998. She became mayor in 1999. Later Amy served as executive director of Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities, now Telluride Arts. During her tenure, she helped establish the arts as means of building community as well as raising awareness for their prominent role in the local economy. Through her work, local Telluride artists and organizations received significantly more funding.

Despite her workload, throughout her career, Amy continued to draw from the deep well of her creative talent, writing, making documentaries, pursuing her passion for photography:

“Photography is my love, my favorite form of creative expression, but taking Robert Weatherford’s intensive class in November 2013 (‘Finding Your Voice’) deepened everything having to do with the way I approached the discipline. Overcoming any fear and resistance to where my creativity was leading, I  found my voice and a richer, more complex way of working with my images. The result is my new show, “Chimera 2D/3D.”