The Intelligencer Record
Style Section
Thursday, May 7, 2002
One of a Kind
by Naila Francis
Sculptor Joan Menapace and musician Robert Berry combine her crazy creatures with his digitally synthesized background noises, voices and music to make a gallery show like no other.
Fourcreature is a mischievous entourage of critters who, although attached to each other, have a tendency to try to wander in different directions.
When they aren't dithering about which way to travel, they may engage in sometimes snide, often comical banter, with one of them prone to recalling the flubs of President Bush's earlier speeches.
Cupcreature, a curious specimen sports a tail of numerous teacups with a radiating cup antenna. "This one eats a lot because he has a lot of cups," says Joan Menapace before moving to introduce yet another of her whimsical creatures.
There's Snailman, as animal transport, and Lollapolooza, the frolicking pink and yellow guardian of the planet Wytestar that these creatures all inhabit. Through May 19, this Buckingham sculptor and painter's motley collection will be exhibited at Gardo's Gallery in Manayunk.
But rather than just give visitors a visual image to study, Menapace's brightly colored clay creatures are even more unusual - they come with their own sounds.
So do her paintings, 22 of which also will be exhibited with accompanying music alongside her sculptures.
Two years ago, Menapace, a retired art teacher from the Palisades School District, teamed up with Doylestown musician robert Berry to begin working on this innovative project. "You go to a gallery, walk in and see a painting," says Berry "and two seconds later you walk away from it and the artist has put so much work into it. I thought if it had music, the viewer's attention would be sustained longer and they'd be more engaged."
And so Berry brought Menapace's sculptures to life, digitally synthesizing different background noises, voices and music to cerate the sounds he imagined they would make were they capable of actual movement.
Visitors to Gardo's Gallery can listen to the sounds on mini-compact disc players stationed near each creature.
Menapace's paintings - alternating dark and vibrant masses of color, shape and form - are accompanied by musical pieces that range from the quietly haunting to more sweeping and energetic scores, some with tribal rhythms. Berry, who plays baroque and renaissance music in a chamber group and was a rock musician when he was younger, previously composed music based on the paintings of abstract impressionist Jackson Pollack after seeing one off his shows in Manhattan.
He had been looking for the work of another artist to take on a similar project when he saw Menapace's paintings at a solo show two years ago. Menapace admits abstract at is difficult for some people to grasp. She creates her paintings, which she refers to as Day Circles, by drawing a 10 inch circle on paper. Then she reflects on that shape building her painting - with water, wax and color - around that circle, inspired by whatever thoughts or feelings she experiences during that one hour it takes her to paint each one. Her sculptures are modeled from forms and creatures that she sees in her paintings.
"When I saw her work," says Amanda Gadola, who owns Gardo's Gallery with her sister, Heather, "I was startled at first. Then I thought 'here's this woman who does something original and different and has fun doing it,' and that's what art is all about. I haven't seen the concept of art and music together yet, but I think that's perfect for her work."
The process Berry used to create the music for her paintings was deliberately imprecise. "I reached into a folder," he says, "without looking, grabbed the first painting my fingers touched. Then the first sound that came into my head, I just rolled with it."
Berry in turn wrote 12 pieces of music and gave them to Menapace, who painted 12 Day Circles inspired by the music. "They're source material for Bob," she says, "for rhythms and motif and they're source material for me for this fantasy world that I'm creating."
Both artists hope the openness and suspension of belief with which they approached their collaboration carry over to the view. "People feel there's some intellectual level they have to have to appreciate abstract art," says Berry. "We want to get those people who normally wouldn't pay attention to that kind of art and we want them to come without too much baggage."
