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Art Gallery Welcomes "Cloud Music" by Joey Rice

The Moss Point Fine Art Gallery Will Be Home to New Art Exhibit of Handmade Paper & Pastels.

The Moss Point Fine Art Gallery at the Pascagoula River Audubon Center is thrilled to welcome a new exhibition by Joey Rice opening May 4, 2017.  The exhibition titled “Cloud Music” is filled with unique work of handmade paper from archival cotton rag mounted on canvas with pastel and aqueous-dispersed pigment. It gracefully depicts the sky with its ever-shifting panorama of color, shape and movement beautifully encompassing elements of form and light.

“Above us lies the sky, with its ever-shifting panorama of color and shape and movement encompassing elements of form and light.  Depending on the time of day or night, colors glide and change rapidly, they lighten and glow at dawn, darken and deepen at dusk.  The atmospheric fluidity of the sky is both fascinating and mysterious.  We are reminded that its permanence is balanced by its inconstancy.  As the earth predictably rotates around the sun, changes can occur rapidly in the landscape: hurricanes, mudslides, fires alter the fabric of horizons and lend understanding to the fragility of our environment and our position in it.

For several years I’ve been intrigued by clouds and their expressive quality in the landscape.  I’ve paid close attention to the sky, rushed to the beach to see the sunrise or set, staked out a place on a friend’s pier to watch the full moon rise over the water. I started experimenting with an idea that began one day when I peered into the vat in my studio and noticed cloud-like formations of fiber drifting across the surface of watery paper pulp.  Wanting to catch that image was the beginning of the  Cloudscape Series.  The work developed in equal parts frustration and exhilaration, attempt to seize an arresting image of the constantly shifting sky— not as a record, but as beauty to be shared and honored for its intensity,” said Joey Rice of her work.

“My challenge as a papermaker has been to use the technique and medium to offer a fresh way to see and think about our place in this world through the language of color and movement and texture—not merely copying but interpreting the natural world around us,” she continued.

“Cloud Music” will be on display at the Pascagoula River Audubon Center from May 4, 2017 until July 1, 2017. The Center, located in historic downtown Moss Point, Miss., is open Tuesday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. and Saturday from 9:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. Learn more about the Pascagoula River Audubon Center at http://pascagoulariver.audubon.org.

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