New Work/Sculpture

REYES + DAVIS are opening the fall season with an exhibition of new work by Barbara Josephs Liotta.

Liotta creates sculpture of shattered stone suspended by cord, two elements that meet to create chaos, and at times symmetry.

“I want to use the rawest of natural materials, channeling their power to create, well, beauty, without emasculating them,” says Liotta.  “The power of the stone is balanced against the formal graces of the suspending cords and the lyricism of the cascade beneath.  Each work breathes with a slight vibrato.”

As Claire Huschle wrote for Sculpture Magazine in July/August 2008:

Barbara Josephs Liotta’s Terrace Descent sculpture at the Katzen Arts Center, American University Museum, examined the shared vocabulary of sculpture and architecture.  Over a corner facing the stairs, Liotta used cord to suspend chucks of black marble and granite from a series of parallel metal rods.  As the rods receded into the corner, the marble and granite pieces likewise seemed to recede, resulting in an inverted ‘marble staircase.’  Liott’a work removed all sense of functionality.  She called up notions of quarries and earthmovers.  But Liotta’s work also exploited the architecture of the space by incorporating motion.  As the wind swept down the stairs, Terrace Descent shifted and twisted, despite its apparent weight.  The work combined the kinetic experience of sculpture with the environmental experience of the space itself.”

Lavanya Ramanthan, in February 1, 2008 issue of The Washington Post, called her sculpture Ascent a “stunning centerpiece,” after seeing it at the Arlington Arts Center as one of Tony and Heather Podesta’s choices for “Collector’s Select” exhibition.

Barbara lives and works in Washington, DC. Her work is in collections nationally and internationally.