Elsa Rady: The Cycladic Swing

Internationally recognized, Los Angeles-based ceramic artist Elsa Rady creates a new series of work in connection with California Visions inspired by her investigations of the remarkable sculptural forms produced by the Ancient Greeks.

(PRWEB) February 19, 2005 -- Elsa Rady: The Cycladic Swing features a remarkable new body of work by the internationally-recognized, Los Angeles-based artist Elsa Rady. For the past twenty years, in an effort to remove the ceramic vessel from the constraints of the tabletop and assert its identity as a unique, richly-layered work of art, Elsa Rady has explored a wide range of installation strategies in which to present her extraordinary ceramic sculpture. Her explorations have culminated in this series of installations in which her elegantly shaped porcelain vessels, spare and uniformly glazed, are placed on swing-like palettes, suspended mid-air from stainless steel cords.

These hauntingly poetic installations were inspired by Radys study of the marble effigy figures produced about 2600 B.C. on the Cycladic Islands off the coast of Greece. While the shapes of Radys vessels were inspired by Cycladic figures, her use of the swing stems from her fascination with a marble, swing-like palette found at various Cycladic burial sites. These ancient palettes, which early antiquarians thought may have been used as beds on which the marble figures were placed, were referred to in 1841 by the German writer Karl Fiedler as Holy Swings." It was from this source that Rady found the inspiration for her new series.

An illustrated publication accompanies the exhibition with an essay by guest curator Bernard Jazzar.

The Long Beach Museum of Art is proud to premier this new body of work by one of Californias leading contemporary artists. Elsa Rady: The Cycladic Swing is part of California Visions, a series of exhibitions and special programs scheduled throughout 2005 to celebrate the extraordinary talents of California-based artists.

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