Weight Wait, 2025, ink, gouache and watercolor on paper, 37.5” x 54”
OPENING RECEPTION with the artist | Friday, September 25th from 5-7pm
This collection of works on paper presents intensive studies of twisted ropes in tangled, suspended masses. As still-life props, muscular nautical and agricultural ropes are carefully examined and rendered in either brushy, expressive marks or through scrutinized observation following the tension of a coil, loop, snag, or frayed surface. The ancient and contemporary tool, the rope, exhibits characteristics of labor efficiency, brutality, and tyranny, as well as the economic use of simple materials to secure safety and profit. Even in a dormant pile, the lax rope is dynamic, full of potential as an eventual aid in harnessing diverse messages. Cast shadows, altering the light falling on the ropes, provide a further effect that engages the drawings in atmosphere. For me, these ropes, submerged, hanging, tangled, or tied, serve as a powerful stand-in for views on current political and environmental issues, as well as private conundrums.
BIOGRAPHY
Dale Emmart attended The Cooper Union for a BFA in printmaking and drawing, and RISD for an MFA in painting. She works as a painter, printmaker, and paper and book artist in her studio in Northeastern Pennsylvania and New York City.
For nearly forty years, she has been an Art educator at many colleges and universities, among them: RISD, The Parsons School of Design, Fordham University, Brooklyn College, as well as independent schools in New York City.
She served as Department Head of Art at The Brearley School for many years and currently directs Plein Air Portugal, a summer landscape painting program for artists in Northern Portugal. She has taught landscape programs for Parsons in Paris, Arts Pro Tem in Scotland, and The Pont Aven School of Art in France. She received an NYFA grant in Painting, a grant for the Dieu Donne Papermill Workspace, and residencies at The MacDowell Colony and at The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is currently working on a Certificate in Bookmaking through the Center for Book Arts and planning several painting exhibitions in 2027, one at The Painting Center in New York City, where she is a member.
This is the artist’s second exhibition at Gladstone.