Sculpturesite Gallery is pleased to present Dialogue, an exhibition of sculpture in steel, glass, paper, and pastels by artists Bella Feldman and JP Long. The show opens September 3^rd, with an opening reception from 5:30 to 7:30, and runs through November 7^th.

In the nine years since Long walked into Feldman’s studio as an assistant, their relationship has grown into a prolific and creative working partnership between two accomplished professional sculptors. Their cross fertilization of ideas has enabled Long to develop into an established artist in his own right and has opened for Feldman fresh avenues of exploration in what has already been a distinguished career. “This exhibition,” says Feldman, “illustrates the crossover as well as the differentiation of ideas between us.” Sculpturesite Gallery is pleased to present the first joint exhibition by these two remarkable artists.

Feldman combines glass and steel with delicate, deliberate menace. Her work is a playfully cynical voice against the means of creative destruction. “I am pessimistic about mankind’s future,” she explains, “but I diffuse my anxiety with ‘black’ humor.” In both form and content, Feldman engages in a dialectic to create unnatural hybrids – architectural organism, senseless reason and ominous banality. Tension is paramount. Feldman will primarily display her latest body of work: uncharacteristically colorful two-dimensional collages produced while in her cramped London studio and offset in sculptural metal frames. The materials used in the collages are culled from Victorian era illustrations of machinery, which she combines with photos of surface textures of her steel sculptures and elaborates with pastels. She will also display two eight foot tall works in steel and glass from her “Reach” series.

Similarly, Long explores the opposing, yet surprisingly complementary, properties of dark steel and clear glass in wall-hung and freestanding works. The materials combine the seeming permanence of steel and the delicate ephemerality of glass into a symbiotic hybrid whose sum is greater then its parts. In addition to his trademark “drip” sculptures, Long will exhibit a new body of work involving a highly labor intensive technique of individually placing hundreds of lamp-worked glass rods into steel forms. The works on display are of varying sizes from under one foot to over seven feet in height.

Feldman and Long are both individualistic and symbiotic. One example specifically highlights this dichotomy. At the front of the exhibition is a shared pedestal holding a piece by each artist. Both employ the orb form in comparable size and similar materials, yet one is convex while the other is concave. “There’s a saying among musicians,” explains Long, “there’s no new tune, just how you play it.. . . As I’ve heard Bella say time and again, quoting Picasso, ‘Good artists borrow; great artists steal.’” Perhaps Feldman and Long borrow from each other; perhaps they steal; or, and what’s more likely, they simply engage in Dialogue.

Bella Feldman is originally from New York, NY and taught sculpture for over 35 years at the California College of Art and Crafts in Oakland, now CCA. She has participated in over fifty solo exhibitions (including several for museums), and group shows throughout the United States and Switzerland. Her sculpture is in museums, corporate and private collections worldwide. She currently separates her time between her Oakland and London studios.

JP Long is from Boston, MA. He studied Jewelry/Metal Arts from the California College of Art and Crafts. Long has since participated in group and solo shows across California, Illinois, Texas and Washington. He currently maintains his studio in the San Francisco Bay area.