Joan Curtis and Richard Weis
Joan Curtis is known for her colorful, magical papier-mache sculpture and visionary paintings and drawings. She was trained at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Chicago Art Institute,
and received a degree in art history from New York University. She has exhibited throughout New England and in invitationals elsewhere. Her work is in many private collections as well as the
public collections of Middlebury College Museum of Art, UVM’s Fleming Museum, and the Fuller Museum of Art (Brockton, MA).
Joan makes acrylic paintings and colored pencil drawings, often using relief and shadow-box techniques. Her specialty is papier-mache/mixed-media work built on strong supports and armatures, a
technique which she occasionally teaches at the Carving Studio and Sculpture Center in West Rutland, Vt.
“In my work, I explore imagery of the inner mind. At this point in my career, I am very self-indulgent. If a beginning project is heading in a direction that delights me during the work
process, I simply climb on board and follow along. It feels like the art has a life of its own and I am just channeling. Every new project is an adventure. It can be unsettling trying to
forge ahead into new areas, but life is never boring. In my art I seem to be seeking a special place where I’d like to be. There’s a strong connection to precious pictures from childhood,
but always with a twist that is unlike anything I remember from the past. The memories are colored by years of experience as a lover of art.”
Richard Weis, a professor at Green Mountain College since 1989, recently completed a sabbatical year that began with an artist-in-residency position and solo exhibition at the University
of Wales, Aberystwyth. The work produced during this sojourn was influenced by the constantly changing weather over the sea and the landscape, After completing his residency in Wales,
Weis spent six months in South Korea as Artist in Residence at Hannam University, funded by his award of the prestigious Fulbright Scholar Grant. The exhibition at Furchgott Sourdiffe
Gallery highlights work that combines Weis' lyrical abstraction
with an Asian sensibility and form.