Artist Member News: Mimi Oritsky

Congratulations to Mimi Oritsky whose work is featured in Gathering Differences: National Artists Exhibition at A.I.R. Gallery. A.I.R. opened its doors in 1972, just two years before Amos Eno Gallery, and focused exclusively on women artists. Mimi Oritsky is a long time member of both Amos Eno and A.I.R. Gallery. Stay tuned for her solo exhibition coming up in May 2018!

Here is an excerpt from the press release:

“When much in the woods, as a little girl, I was told that the snake would bite me, that I might pick a poisonous flower, or goblins kidnap me; but I went along and met no one but angels, who were far shyer of me than I could be of them, so I have n't that confidence in fraud which many exercise.”

- Emily Dickinson, excerpt from a letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1862

A.I.R. Gallery is pleased to present our annual National Artists exhibition “Gathering Differences” with work selections made by Helga Christoffersen, Assistant Curator at the New Museum, New York. The A.I.R. National Artists exhibition has been a feature of A.I.R. Gallery’s programming since 1981. The importance of having a broader base of members in general, and of an annual exhibition of their work in particular, has been considered essential to the activities at A.I.R. The possibility of showing the work of talented women artists from around the nation in New York City enhances the opportunities for dialogue both within the A.I.R. community and with its audiences. The body of work created by these artists represents broader views on the current human condition because the makers of the work have different perspectives, both personally and geographically.

Though their practices are as varied as the artists themselves, in this exhibition we can identify three interconnected threads of work: the use of the human body, the relationship of the body or self to its environment, and the formation of identity that comes from this relationship. In “Gathering Differences”, we encounter artists with extremely varied backgrounds, motivations, ideas and process preferences who venture, in the realms of their practice, out into the woods. Their work comes together at A.I.R. Gallery.

The Artists included in the exhibition are: Hend Al-Mansour (Minneapolis, MN), Rae Broyles (Roswell, GA), d'Ann de Simone (New Haven, CT and East Lansing, MI), Dani Dodge (Los Angeles, CA), Shannon Forrester (Somerville, MA), Alisa Henriquez (East Lansing, MI), Jody Joldersma (Seattle, WA), Julia Kim Smith (Baltimore, MD), Mimi Oritsky (Philadelphia, PA), Patty Smith (Philadelphia, PA), Ann Stoddard (Adelphi, MI), Amy Swartele (Potsdam, NY), Vicky Tomayko (Truro, MA), Erin Wiersma (Manhattan, KS), Joo Yeon Woo (Boulder, CO), Mineko Yoshida (Charlottesville, VA).