Points of Return:
Shanti Grumbine, Pat McCarthy, and Padma Rajendran

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River Valley Arts Collective is pleased to announce Points of Return, a group exhibition in which the movement from and back to a place of origin unites variegated work by Shanti Grumbine, Pat McCarthy, and Padma Rajendran.

Along commutes and perambulations, Grumbine collects bits of detritus and chronicles the road markings and architectural features of her surroundings. She then meticulously reproduces the industrial relics through careful craft techniques such as weaving and felting. By creating multiple iterations of the same form, Grumbine transforms the monotony of quotidian travel into meditations on the cultural values assigned to objects, modes of production and consumption, and how public indications of climate change, economic segregation, and devotion are as ubiquitous as they are commonly overlooked.

McCarthy’s whimsically surreal bricolage sculptures and paintings feature homing pigeons, which use magnetoreception to return to their home nests from extremely long distances. His recent work draws inspiration from the farm that he and his wife are building in the Catskill Mountains. Deploying a wide range of material including glazed porcelain, raw wool, pigeon eggs, pigeon scat, French perfume, and bits of pornographic magazines, McCarthy depicts his identification with the structures, vegetation, and machinery of his newly constructed landscape, as well as his time spent stargazing and watching the spinning formations of his pigeon flock.

The symbolically-loaded imagery in Rajendran’s collaged textiles connect past and present homes along with places both real and imaginary. In a new series of abstract landscapes, she creates atmospheric perspective by integrating wet-felted raw and carded wool into flattened, died silk compositions. Their color-rich palm trees, fruit, and water motifs signify life, growth, and prosperity, and also appear in a series of wall-hangings shaped like oversized jeans. In the latter, Rajendran reflects on how jeans signify differently depending on geographic and historical contexts. Alternately indicating rural labor or cosmopolitan leisure, rugged independence or land occupation, gender neutrality or a sexualized body, the jeans navigate between the places and events that shape both the clothing and the person who wears it.

The artists included in Points of Return were the recipients of RVAC’s 2021-2022 Money and Materials Grant, a granting program that awards Hudson Valley artists fiscal support, locally sourced materials, and exhibition opportunities. Through RVAC’s partnership with Cabbage Hill Farm (Mount Kisco), Grumbine, McCarthy, and Rajendran were given raw wool, which they incorporated into the new work on view in this exhibition.

About the artists:

Shanti Grumbine (b. 1979, Rhinebeck, NY) is a New York-based multi-media artist. She has been an artist in residence at the Millay Colony, Ucross, Yaddo, Vermont Studio Center, Saltonstall Foundation, Wave Hill Winter Workspace Residency, Lower East Side Printshop Keyholder Residency, Artist in the Marketplace (AIM), Women’s Studio Workshop, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, BRIC Workspace and the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program. Fellowships and grants include the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Printmaking/Drawing/Book Arts, the Santo Foundation Individual Artist Grant, RVAC Money and Materials Grant, Arts Mid-Hudson Individual Artist Grant,Taking Care Fund, A.I.R Gallery Fellowship and the LABA Fellowship at the 14th Street Y. Select exhibition venues include The Bronx Museum, Dorsky Gallery, Dorsky Museum, CCA Sante Fe, Love Apple Art Space, Magnan-Metz Gallery, Fridman Gallery, Planthouse Gallery, PS 122, Smack Mellon, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey and IPCNY. Shanti received an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Padma Rajendran (b. 1985, Klang, Malaysia) studied at Bryn Mawr College and received her M.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design. She teaches drawing at Vassar College. She has exhibited at the International Print Center New York, Ortega y Gasset Projects (Brooklyn), Beers London (UK), Field Projects (New York), September Gallery (Hudson NY) , BRIC Arts Media (Brooklyn), Aicon Gallery (NYC), Taymour Grahne Gallery (UK), and most recently a solo show at SE Cooper Contemporary (Portland, OR) . She lives and works in Catskill, NY. Her works on fabric experiment with the clash and combination of patterning and storytelling. Her content rich compositions reference the duality and contradictions of culture and the multi-facetted definitions of universal heritage. She has completed residencies at Ortega y Gasset Projects, the Studios at Mass MoCA, Women’s Studio Workshop, Ox-Bow, and Lower East Side Printshop. Her work has been featured in Chronogram Magazine, New American Paintings, Art Maze Magazine, and Maake Magazine.

Pat McCarthy (b. 1987, Danbury, CT) works in sculpture, zine-making, and film. He received his training entirely in the field apprenticing under Tom Sachs and JJ PEET. McCarthy’s work presents poetic narratives born of deep ritualized engagement with nature, animals, and travel. Emphasis is given to public performance, democratized platforms of communication, and functional bricolage. His work is executed and exhibited widely in the USA and internationally. He is a member of the collectives Satan Ceramics and 8 Ball Community. His work is in the collections of MoMA, New York; Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain, Marseille; Museo Jumex, Mexico City; and many private collections.

Points of Return is curated by Sophie Landres. For more information, please contact info@rvacollective.org.

This exhibition is on view at Hudson House located at 824 Warren Street in Hudson, NY 12534. The gallery at Hudson House is open Saturdays and Sundays 12 - 6pm and by appointment.

Hudson House is an artist-run space which hosts exhibitions, public arts programming and a visiting artist/curator residency program. For more information on their space, program, and residency, visit www.hudsonhousehudson.com.