Sheila Ghidini is known for her delicate and lifelike drawings of objects like nests, books, and chairs using graphite on paper sometimes layered with beeswax. She is intrigued by classic artistic concerns of light, shadow and the negative shapes that form between objects.

In her latest body of work, Ghidini depicts architectonic structures–buildings, staircases, and revisited chairs–in a striking new way. Whereas most of her previous drawings emit a sense of stillness and clarity of form, her new works are complex visual puzzles that evoke dynamic movement. Skeletal drawings of houses have transparent planes for walls and floors that appear to be sliding side-to-side or stairways that jut through the roof. Jumbled masses of intertwined and piled-up chairs in a variety of styles, from familiar to fantastic, appear as visual symphonies or perplexing cacophonies.

Early 20^th century Cubism, with its compositions of deconstructed and re-constructed objects portrayed from multiple vantage points at once, may be Ghidini’s historical precedent. Among her contemporaries are painter Joan Banach, with her monochromatic fields of complex geometric structures, and Toba Khedoori, whose monumental renderings of architectural forms as well as her incorporation of wax echo Ghidini’s interests in subject matter and use of materials.

With objects as common as chairs and the most basic of drawing materials, Ghidini creates energized and evocative images. In-between spaces features a powerful and intriguing series of drawings that represent a thrilling leap in her practice.

Sabine Reckewell has been creating conceptually dictated installations and wall drawings made of string, yarn, cord, webbing, and other linear materials for more than a decade. Her experimentation in this arena began over a period of several years in the early 1980’s. In 2011, she revisited some of these early works and began creating new linear installations. Since then she has continued working in two primary directions. For some installations, she uses only straight lines, often created with a single continuous length of material that is wrapped around precisely spaced nails in opposing walls, to create geometric planes, volumes in space, or flat wall drawings. In others, she strings the material loosely from one point to another, allowing gravity to create curved volumes or arched shapes.

In a shift that is radical within the artist’s process, Reckewell’s new installations incorporate a combination of straight and curvilinear lines. In addition, she has allowed the mixing of different materials and use of multiple colors within a single piece. In one work, thick curved lines of canary yellow nylon webbing overlap straight lines of narrow nylon cord in shades of gray and blue. Staying within a rectangular perimeter, the works reference drawings or paintings, and the gallery walls become the canvas.

Born in Germany and educated in a Bauhaus school, Reckewell identifies László Moholy-Nagy’s paintings and shadow boxes as inspirations, while her works resemble the Constructivist sculptures of Naum Gabo. Reckewell’s use of fiber-based materials to create large sculptural works and installations is an approach shared by contemporaries such as Los Angeles-based Pae White and French artist Sébastien Preschoux.

With a steadiness and depth of ongoing investigation within a fairly specific realm, Reckewell continues to lead us to new ground.

About the Artists 

Sheila Ghidini was born in Connecticut.  She attended Hartford Art School, University of Hartford and did graduate work at Cranbrook Academy of Art. She completed an M.F.A. in sculpture at the University of California, Berkeley, receiving the Sylvan and Pam Coleman Memorial Fellowship.  She was an artist-in residence at The Headlands Center for the Arts and The American Academy in Rome.  She has received grants from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, the Krasner-Pollack Foundation, the San Francisco Arts Commission, the Marcelle Labaudt Memorial Fund, Rockefeller Foundation and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts.  She has taught art throughout the Bay Area, including at University of California, Berkeley, California College of the Arts, and San Francisco State University and University of California Extensions. This is Ghidini’s fourth solo exhibition at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary.

Sabine Reckewell was born in Germany, where she studied at the Bauhaus-based Institution Academy of Fine Arts in Kassel. She earned a BS in textile design at University of California, Davis, and an MFA in textile art at Fiberworks in Berkeley and Lone Mountain College in San Francisco. Reckewell’s work has been exhibited at the Art Museum of Sonoma County in Santa Rosa, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery on Grove Street, Berkeley Art Center, di Rosa in Napa, Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, Paradise Ridge Winery sculpture park in Santa Rosa, and the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. Outside the Bay Area, she has exhibited at the Drawing Center and Scope Art Fair in New York, Lyons Weir Gallery in Chicago, Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, IN, and at Claremont Graduate University Art Gallery and Pitzer College in Claremont, CA. This is her third solo exhibition at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary.

About Chandra Cerrito Contemporary:

Established in 2007 as a curatorial project space, Chandra Cerrito Contemporary features exhibitions and site-specific installations that highlight exceptional regional and national artists, with an emphasis on conceptual strength, refined craftsmanship, contemporary vision and art historical relevance.