Transmission Gallery presents Uncertain Navigation, a solo exhibition by Lynn Beldner in our small space gallery. The exhibition features a collection of Beldner’s delicate and sensitive works elevating the modest artifacts of daily life. Encapsulated, isolated, yet placed in conjunction, the careful attention Beldner brings to each element points the way to its meaning and value.
Beldner says of her work:
My work is diaristic and immediate. I incorporate sewing and drawing often combining textile, paper, and objects. The discarded, broken, or unnoticed objects are part of my vocabulary. The mundane detritus has new importance. My work investigates the passing of time, aging, fragility, identity, history, memory, healing, and storytelling.
All are invited to attend the Artist’s Reception, Saturday, March 23nd, 1-4 pm, with light refreshments served on our outdoor deck, weather permitting.
Beldner has deep ties to the San Francisco Bay Area. After maintaining a studio in Oakland for many years, she relocated to Woodland, CA in 2017 with her husband, Steve Briscoe, also an artist. Her sketchbooks/journals, from the past 36 years were acquired by the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. The Archive of Recorded Sound, at Stanford University has acquired her collection of photographs and negatives. Through the years her art practice has expanded to cover many different mediums.
Beldner is the recipient of the James Phelan Award, Bemis Art Residency, Public Glass Residency, and Paulson Bott Residency. Her work is in the collection of Harvard, Crocker Art Museum, Oakland Museum, DeYoung Museum, Berkeley Art Museum, and the Oakland Museum of California, as well as many other private collections.
Opening Reception also March 23rd from 1-4pm.
Transmission Gallery Oakland is open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, noon to 5 pm and by appointment.
Some of the work the exhibition will include:
“Uncertain Navigation” paper maps, with textile, drawings, sewn together to form pillows. Concerns: navigation, borders, history, cartography, ongoing wars, violence. 30”x10”x4″
“Scholars of Nostalgia” The knick knack, slang for an art object of a lesser stature, can be an eloquent substrate for manipulation. Not so very well made, not art yet, but not just decorative, these objects have a certain pathos that can be turned to for comfort and even enlightenment. By placing this deceptively simple object in the spotlight, you call attention to it, you cause it to be seen. Allowing the object’s history to be pondered or highlighted, elevates its status as secret keeper and a reliquary of memories. Each piece: 13”x3”x3”, overall: 13”x18”x3”, wood, paint, metal.
“Part Memoir” (pillows) began during the pandemic. Sewing, drawing, and painting on textiles is transformative. Each piece is independent of the other and at the same time a collaboration occurs by proximity.
“Tangerine” wax paper and found documents, writings, lists, a diary, a domestic diary, a journal. From another time when pen and paper were the only way to keep lists. Remnants from someone else’s life – I assume it was a woman. Filled with documentation about her purchases. There is a story here, but I am not privy to it. It really wasn’t meant to be seen by others. Did it make her feel better? There is a repetition of names, things bought (cigarettes, alcohol, food, restaurants). Tangerines sent to someone in Los Angeles is also a repeated item. I started by tearing out the pages. Combining the pages with the receipts. And then encapsulating them in wax paper. Each piece: 16” x 10”, overall: 54” x 72”
What happens to the misc. remnants from your life? The mundane detritus. At this moment I cannot remember where I found these notebooks. (small spiral binders filled with lists). A document, a record, bookkeeping, list making a story, an autobiography. Why did she keep them? (money concerns, obsessive list making)
I think of them, placed in a box and unforgotten.
Image: Scholars of Nostalgia, each piece: 13” x 3” x 3”, overall: 13” x 18” x 3”, wood, paint, metal.
