The Oceanside Museum of Art presents Cathy Breslaw A Matter Of Space an exhibition on view October 22, 2011 – February 12, 2012 in the The Gerald and Inez Grant Parker Gallery.
Informed by the boundless concept of space, local artist Cathy Breslaw will create a site-specific installation in the OMA Parker Gallery that uses industrial materials to investigate her interest in how people relate to changing physical and intangible environments. Through the twisting, stretching, painting, wrapping, slashing, tying, layering and folding of materials such as industrial mesh and wire, Breslaw embraces the challenge of manipulation while transforming commonly overlooked items, creating spatial awareness that transcends functionality and purpose.
Breslaw’s work incorporates her curiosity and intuition about the sometimes unseen visual poetry of the ordinary object, while referencing her travels around the world in search of the materials she uses. Her transformation of these items from their original intended use reinvents the material, making it a metaphor for the constant evolution of our universe, and of our global culture. Through her paintings, sculptures and installations, she comments on morphing forms of communication and the ways in which people relate to each other and to the spaces around them. By embracing materiality, and the dissimilar combinations of different ideas, textures and objects, Breslaw encourages her audience to accept the concepts of space and time in unique ways.
Born in Coral Gables, Florida and raised in Baltimore, Breslaw received her BA in American Studies from George Washington Univeristy in Washington D.C., and went on to earn a Masters of Social Work from Howard University and her MFA from Claremont Graduate University. Her work has been featured in over 25 solo exhibitions including Weightless, Charleston Heights Art Center, Las Vegas, NV; Recent Discoveries, Earleville Art Center Opera House, Binghamton, NY; Light Play, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA; and Explorations: Space and Light, Bakersfield Art Museum.
Image: Cathy Breslaw Oceanside Museum of Art