2024 Gala | Tickets | View All Auction Artworks

Margaret Cogswell: Desert Soundings/Montello

DESCRIPTION

Margaret Cogswell, Desert Soundings/Montello, 2022, 9 3/4″ x 12″, Litho bar rubbing of desert floor on washi paper with watercolor & color pencil

Value: $400

Starting Bid: $100

Desert Soundings/Montello – Margaret Cogswell 2022 Litho bar rubbing of desert floor on washi paper with watercolor & color pencil My drawings are the result of days and months of walking, exploring, photographing and filming the landscape of an area I am researching for the development of each of my projects. Much like an archaeologist or geologist, I may search for clues to the history of a river, a people, or a place in the enigmatic remnants of their past. In the desert surrounding Montello Artist Residency, there was comfort in the powerful sense of time upended- of life having been forever and ongoing despite being weathered and worn. There was beauty in the dancing arms of the “old sage”, in the sculpted rock forms that turned out to be dried elk dung, and in the desert floor which held the memories of everything in its dust, including my own footprints. And so I painted and drew. Intensely focused on the desert floor I rubbed it with my hands and, with a litho bar, transferred what I felt onto sheets of paper. Drawing back into these rubbings, I looked perhaps to have transferred some wisdom about life and living from its layered histories.

Margaret Cogswell is a mixed-media installation artist residing in West Shokan, New York. Cogswell is the recipient of numerous awards, including the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2009), Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2017-18, 1991 & 1987) and the New York Foundation for the Arts (2007, 1993). In 2024, Cogswell was awarded a grant from Tree of Life Foundation for support of her project in Japan, summer of 2024. Cogswell was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and raised in Japan where she lived until she was 13 years old. Since 2003, the main focus of Cogswell’s work has been an ongoing series of RIVER FUGUES projects exploring the interdependency of people, industry and rivers. RIVER FUGUES began in Cleveland, Ohio with Cuyahoga Fugues, a mixed-media installation inspired by and incorporating generations of stories reflecting the life and dreams embodied in the Cuyahoga River. RIVER FUGUES have been commissioned for solo exhibitions by museums and art centers nationally and internationally including: Karasu to Issyoni Kaerimasyo/ River of Memories at mhProjects, Nokogirini, Ichinomiya, Japan (2024); Moving the Water(s): River Fugues & Poems, Madelon Powers Art Gallery, East Stroudsburg University of PA (2019); Moving The Water(S): Ashokan Fugues, ART Lab Gallery, Columbus State University, GA (2018); Moving the Water(s): Croton Fugues, at Mid-Manhattan Library of New York Public Library, New York (2017); Moving the Water(s): Ashokan Fugues, CUE Art Foundation, NYC (2014); Water Soundings, Zendai Zhujiajiao Art Museum, China (2014); Wyoming River Fugues, Art Museum, University of Wyoming, Laramie (2012); Mississippi River Fugues, Art Museum, University of Memphis, Tennessee (solo 2008); Buffalo River Fugues at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, NY (solo 2006). Hudson River Fugues installation was included in Lives of the Hudson group exhibition at the Tang Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY (2009-2010) and Meteorological Phenomena exhibition, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY (2005). From 2007-2009, River Fugues installation traveled in the group exhibition, Melting Ice/ A Hot Topic from the BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, Belgium (2007), to the Monaco Ministry of Culture (2008), and the Chicago Field Museum (2009). RIVER FUGUES mixed-media installation projects also include a parallel body of works on paper (see Instagram: mcogswellfugues; https://margaretcogswell.net/drawings). Recent exhibitions of works on paper include: Tidal Shift: UNE Art Gallery, Biddeford, Maine, (2024); 11 Women of Spirit – Part 9, Salon Zurcher, NYC, NY (2024); This Earth: Notes and Observations by Montello Foundation Artists, Concord Art, Concord, MA (2023).