IN THE SHADOW OF
YOUR WINGS
"IN THE SHADOW OF YOUR WINGS' is a series of 118 painted
monoprints in which Schrier utilizes aerial photos of WINGS OF WITNESS
to document the project through additional works of art that he
creates. While these butterfly images range in size from 24 "X
30" to works 60" wide, each print is actually an image of many
millions of soda-tabs made into feathers by many thousands of
participants, assembled into a massive sculpture by hundreds of
volunteers, photographed, then generated and hand painted by Schrier.
Schrier generates the prints through heat fusion of opaque black
particles of granular toner onto tinted papers, emphasizing that the
images are composites of millions of points, almost like dust.
After Schrier pulls the prints, he paints into them with metallic
acrylic and superfine tempera. His process involves dashing and
splattering of pigments, a reference to ritual priestly sacrifice in
the ancient Temple. The splatterings also suggest ascent, retaliation
and disintegration. Interference and iridescent pigments result in
transformations of light and color as the viewer moves by the works.
The brilliant yellow base paper color of many of the prints is a
reference to the yellow star Jews were forced to wear,and also a
reference to a line from the Pavel Friedmann poem, 'The Butterfly':
....so richly brightly dazzlingly yellow.
Accompanying selected monoprints in the series are lines from El
Molei Rachamim. This Hebrew memorial prayer contains references of
hope for the souls of lost loved ones to be bound up in the shadow of
the Eternal's protective WINGS.
WINGS
FOR WARSAW, Painted montage monoprint 35" X46"
Image sources: aerial photo, WINGS OF WITNESS at Holocaust Memorial
and Educational Center
of Nassau County, Welwyn Preserve, Glen Cove, NY, 2003
from installation containing 6 million can tabs, 100 feet wide, 4.5
tons.
Background skyline images of the destroyed Warsaw Ghetto May, 1943.
WINGS OF WITNESS, Painted monoprint, 18" X
34"
Image source: aerial photo, meadow, Loudoun County, VA, 2001
from installation containing 5.5 million can tabs, 94 feet wide, 3.6
tons
Sponsor: Irwin Uran Gift Fund, Loudoun County Public Library,
Leesburg, Virginia
for 2,000 area participants
WINGS
OF WITNESS, Painted monoprint, 18" X 34" Image source:
aerial photo by Yoni Bujo,
The
Brandeis Bardin Institute, Simi Valley Ca, 2000 from mountain foothill
installation containing 4 million tabs,
90
feet wide, 3.2 tons construction by Alonim Counselors in Training
assisted by campers.
WINGS
OF WITNESS, Painted monoprint, 18" X 24"
Image
source: photo, The Bremen Museum, Atlanta, GA, 1999
from
main gallery installation, 38 feet wide containing 1.5 million
tabs,
the
number of children destroyed in the Holocaust.
Museum
sponsorship of project workshops for 1200 area youth participants.
Schrier also creates works of art in advance of
site-installations to help him become familiar with the dynamics of
the new setting and envision how the butterfly will interface with the
site. The following matrix montage works created prior to the Katonah
Museum of Art installation in 2005, exemplify this process. For many
of these works, mirror images of his photos of the museum sculpture
garden taken from the museum roof top, are inset with aerial
documentary photos of WINGS of WITNESS from previous installations.
Primarily printed in black on white archival stock, some of the matrix
montages are heat fused onto hand made papers. Some contain sections
tinted with acrylic and oil crayons.
Katonah/Bremen
Descent. Montage/collage, 16" X 22", 2005
Image
source: photo, WINGS OF WITNESS from The Bremen Museum, Atlanta,
1999
set
into photo matrix, sculpture garden, Katonah Museum of Art,
Westchester County, NY.
Katonah/Wingspan.
Montage/collage, 16"X 22" , 2005
Image source:
Aerial photo, WINGS OF WITNESS from The Brandeis Bardin Institute,
Simi Valley California, 2000
set into photo matrix, sculpture garden, Katonah Museum of Art,
Westchester County, NY.
Hovering
Katonah. Montage/collage, 18" X 29", 2005
Image source: Two aerial photos, WINGS OF WITNESS
at the Holocaust Memorial and Educational Center of Nassau County, NY,
2003
set into photo matrix, sculpture garden, Katonah Museum of Art,
Westchester County, NY.
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