Rebecca Gilbert: wonder brings together new prints by the Philadelphia-based artist. Gilbert’s works come out of her interest in both traditional print processes and her poetic response to the landscape.
December 16, 2016 - April 22, 2017
Gallery Talk
Thursday, March 23, 2017
This new body of work grows out of an artist residency Gilbert had in 2015 at OCHO, Questa, NM. During the residency she explored the countryside around Questa guided by a treasure map created in the form of a poem. It was created by a retired art collector living in Santa Fe named Forrest Fenn, who has hidden more than one million dollars in gold somewhere in the rugged nearby countryside. Gilbert’s hunt for Fenn’s treasure became an opportunity to take notes and make sketches of the beautiful landscape with its interesting rock formations and hidden petroglyphs, as well as of objects she found during her hikes. Those sketches were the starting point for the engravings and woodcuts in this exhibition. While Gilbert’s treasure hunting activities are recent, her work has focused on gold in the past.
Rebecca Gilbert received her BFA in Printmaking from Marshall University, Hun- tington, WV and her MFA in Printmaking/Book Arts from The University of the Arts, Philadelphia. She also studied nontoxic etching at the Grafisk Eksperimentarium, Capileira, Spain. For several years she was a member of Nexus Foundation for Today’s Art, Philadelphia, where she presented three solo exhibitions and curated several group exhibitions. Gilbert’s work is in numerous public collections, including the Free Library of Philadelphia Print and Picture Collection; Princeton University Graphic Arts Library; and Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw, GA. Her work has been included in recent exhibitions at Birke Art Gallery, Marshall University, Hun- tington, WV; Crane Arts, Philadelphia, PA; The Center for Emerging Visual Artists, Philadelphia, PA; and Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, The University of the Arts, Philadel- phia, PA. Gilbert is represented by The Print Center Gallery Store. In 2014, The Print Center exhibited Gilbert’s work at the Editions Artists’ Book Fair, New York, NY.
Gallery notes are generously provided by Brilliant Studios.