Aldwyth: Work v./Work n.-Collage and Assemblage 1991-2009

Exhibition Closed May 2010

This exhibition marks the first major retrospective of collage and assemblage artist Aldwyth. For more than two decades, Aldwyth has produced her art in relative seclusion from the larger art world. Now seventy-three, she lives and works in an octagonal house on the edge of a salt marsh on Hilton Head Island, where she creates astonishingly complex collages and assemblages that recall the fantastical intricacies of Hieronymus Bosch.

The exhibition subtitle, Work v./Work n., is intended to illuminate the idea that work is both a verb and a noun, and highlights the word’s alternate definitions. This focus is indicative of the artist’s desire for her art to be appreciated both as an object of art and a representation of the effort required to create it.

“Work is what all art has in common,” Aldwyth says. Although an outsider to the art world, Aldwyth is by no means an outsider artist. She uses the history of art, ideas, and technology as both catalyst and source material. Despite her relative geographic isolation, Aldwyth devours information and images available to her from libraries, bookstores, the internet, and art magazines.

Aldwyth: work v./Work n.-Collage and Assemblage, 1991-2009 was organized by The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston.

Click here to view a video of Aldwyth’s work Aldwyth- Walk in the Woods

Image:   Aldwyth; Casablanca (classic version) (detail), 2003-6; Collage on Okarawa paper; 79 x 73 inches; Courtesy of the artist and the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art.