Fingerreisen
an exhibition by Elisabeth Pellathy and Lee Somers

Exhibition Dates: August 25th – October 6th, 2016
Opening Reception: Thursday August 25th, 2016 from 5:00pm to 7:00pm with an artist talk by Elisabeth Pellathy and Lee Somers at 5:30pm.

Fingerreisen is the German term for imaginary journeys taken by both the hand and the mind interacting with maps. Elisabeth Pellathy and Lee Somers use maps as a starting point for imaginary journeys and as a visual record for the experience of place. The exhibition includes traditional and experimental artistic processes including sculpture, drawing, video, and sound that investigate unconventional notions of exploring landscape.

Pellathy’s maps are a hybrid of real weather maps and her own conception of how her environment might appear from above. In her video work, she investigates landforms created by alternately converging and diverging horizon lines in an ever-shifting frame, liquefying distinctions between frontal and aerial viewpoints. Pellathy is a professional artist and Assistant Professor of New Media at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, Alabama.

Somers uses maps glued to plywood as structural planes, intricately cutting along meandering lines of roads and waterways, and layering planes in space in a stacked topography of juxtaposed memories and locations. This investigation extends to manipulating topographic data using digital design and fabrication tools, milling mountain forms from recycled piano wood, exposing the history of the material and recalling geologic strata. Somers is a professional artist and Assistant Professor of Art Three Dimensional Design at the University of Montevallo in Montevallo, Alabama.

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McMaster Gallery is located in the University of South Carolina’s School of Visual Art and Design at 1615 Senate Street, Columbia, SC with accessible street parking on Pickens, Senate, and Henderson.
The gallery is free and open to the public and the hours are Monday – Friday 9:00 am – 4:30 pm (closed weekends and all university holidays). For more information contact: Shannon Rae Lindsey, Gallery Director
email: slindsey@email.sc.edu  phone: 803.777.5752