Take Only What You Can Give: an exhibition by Diana Heise

3.11.11 to 4.22.11Performance and Opening Reception, Friday 3.11.11, 6 – 9 PMGallery Talk on 3.12.11 at 12:00 PM

Take Only What You Can Give is the second solo exhibition by multi-disciplinary resident artist Diana Heise at The Studios Inc Exhibition Space. This show includes four new bodies of work from 2010 and 2011, including a series of videos, sculptural installations, photographs and a performance. Each work tackles ideas surrounding violence found in contemporary society, in order to highlight the fragile resilience of life. Through her work, Heise creates a visual language that engages the grotesque and the beautiful to address the effects of fear and domination. Her aim is to encourage catharsis, healing and sensations of freedom.The title piece is a sculpture and participatory performance aimed at cultivating contemplation of the link between people and the environment. Three performers will lie on a reclaimed wood sculptural platform, covered by hundreds of pounds of local red clover seeds. The audience will be invited to take handfuls of seeds, asked to take only what they can be responsible for cultivating.Diana Heise’s work has been exhibited in galleries and festivals internationally, including at the Brooklyn Museum, the Film Anthology Archives, Soho20 Chelsea Gallery, New York, NY. She is a recipient of a Performance Art Fund Grant from the Franklin Furnace Inc as well as a Presidential Fellowship at the American University in Cairo. She has spoken about her work in venues such as the Parsons School of Art and Design, the H&R Block Artspace and the Kansas City Art Institute.