Nexus Resident Artist Virginia Batson: Lacunae April 1 - May 1, 2005 Resident artist Virginia Batson will present several new installations on the theme of Lacunae, meaning small openings, hollows, or missing parts. "In reading Buddhist philosophy, I was struck by the basic teaching that all suffering is caused by craving," says Virginia, "but I also knew that craving - that feeling that something is missing - is the basic motivator for everything we do. The question is, do you own your cravings or do your cravings own you?" In this work, Batson treats her own assiduously recorded wants and desires, and those of her loved ones, with respect and tenderness. In urge and urge and urge, hundreds of translucent open-mouthed orbs, hand-molded and cast in glue, multiply along one wall, occasionally mutating with spikes, knobs or ridges as they manifest the ebb and flow of hunger and desire. In a second piece, the artist's own wants are confessed onto tiny slivers of paper and encapsulated in glue, captured and protected - though upon close inspection of the gallery walls, not hidden. Another wall bristles with small offerings of her husband's hair, delicately knotted in strips of raw silk and temporarily shielding the list of wants transcribed by hand onto the wall. You may get a whiff of black magic as you gently brush the silk totems aside to read the concealed language. "This work is a practice of compassion, though whether I'm working to fulfill my loved ones' cravings or exorcise them is ambiguous," Virginia says. This work investigates the power inherent in our cravings, and wonders whether they are a detailed recipe for happiness, or a formula for continual suffering. Presented without judgment or censorship, viewers will feel instantly familiar with many of the cravings listed, along with the strangely foreign feeling of being inside someone else's mind. Sculptor and installation artist Virginia Batson received her MFA from The University of the Arts in 2002. She exhibits her work nationally, and her artists' books are in university and museum collections in New York, Philadelphia and the UK. She lives in Philadelphia where she coordinates the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours. Another piece examining craving through melted sugar and language can be seen at the Art Full Text exhibition in Philadelphia's City Hall through June 24. All contents of this website copyright Virginia Batson, 2000-2005. Site design by Peter W. Grant