Opening Reception: November 5, 5:30-7:30pm

The Rena Bransten Gallery is pleased to present our third exhibition of work by Ruth Asawa. Ruth Asawa's wire sculptures transform inert materials into dynamic physical constructs, co-opting paper, wire, clay, concrete, fiber, steel, and bronze to express her extraordinary vision. For over forty years, she pushed her materials in directions that challenged not only their physical attributes but also their traditional dimensional placement on pedestal, wall, and floor - ultimately hanging or suspending the works to activate the spaces surrounding them. Her graceful biomorphic forms engage in a play with light creating shadow configurtions which extend the range of each work from sculpture to environment or installation.

Also on view will be two dimensional works showing their linkage to the sculptures. Each work on paper began with abstract marks, a single line, or paint smear that when pushed and repeated became larger organic shapes. The process - diligent and determined - of coalescing marks transformed paint or ink dabs into a stand of plane trees or a watermelon, a dot into a chair, a brush print into a pointillist inspried landscape, or curved charcoal lines into a stylized ocean wave. One senses the importance of the small mark to the evolving density in both her two and three dimensional works where the multiplication of unit cells - either a micro or macrososm - builds to the whole art-organism.

Ms. Asawa was born in 1926 in Norwalk, California and lives in San Francisco. Following her internment in Arkansas during WWII, Ms. Asawa attended Black Mountain College where she studied with Josef Albers and buckminster Fuller from 1946-49. As well as being a practicing artist, Asawa was instrumental in developing art education in San Francisco and the establishment of the School of the Arts in San Francisco. Her work is included in important private and public collections nationally and in 2006, she received recognition in the form of a major retrospective at San Francisco's De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park as part of their inaugural celebration (which traveled to the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles).