The June 2009 issue of The Global Spiral proudly features the work of visual artists Virginia Batson and Rebecca Gilbert. Both are members of NEXUS, a multi-disciplinary art co-operative based in Philadelphia. View their work, alongside other NEXUS artists, in a group exhibit titled, Invasive Species, running now through June 19 at the Community Arts Center in Wallingford, PA. Can't make it to the exhibit? Scroll down on this page and click through the articles in this issue to view more of Batson's and Gilbert's compositions.
Virginia Batson: generate, gestate, grow
These drawings were a part of my first exhibition since my son was born in 2006. After having deeply immersed myself in the extraordinary—and completely ordinary—processes of pregnancy, natural birth, breastfeeding, and conscious parenting, I've never felt so intricately enmeshed in the procreant fabric of the world. I began this series of small drawings during my pregnancy to explore images of reproduction, gestation, and cellular growth within the confines of a restrained palette: pencil, needle, glue, paper. I work directly from the body, harnessing the authenticity of improvisation and the strength of a conceptual foundation – in this case a materials-based score harkening back to John Cage.
The natural processes of growth and evolution continually inspire me in the studio. I am intent on discovering the inherent nature and potential of my (often unusual) materials through sensory-based research and experimentation. (My sculptural materials have included my own hair and nails, glue as a proxy for skin, salt, sugar, acorns, and even the zoogleal mats used to ferment kombucha tea.) My art-making process seeks to approximate the beauty – both random and patterned – created by cellular growth. Working like a mad scientist in my own lab, I explore substances less for their virtuosic technical possibilities than for their evocative and metaphorical power.
My body of work includes works on paper, sculpture and installation; my focus on process and the body’s generative capabilities is at the core of my work. I bring a deep physical consciousness to my work that is the result of many years of dance, yoga, and sensory awareness training. I seek to define a space where human existence, especially the human body and its biological and artistic capacity to create, is no longer separated from the rest of the natural world.
In The End of the Art World, Robert C. Morgan writes that the challenge in approaching art is “how to slow down and regain consciousness.” I want to slow you down, to awaken in you a fully present human awareness. As Morgan writes, “beauty may be what one discovers by paying close attention."
Rebecca Gilbert: Dirt Thirst 
I am a printmaker /mixed media artist with an enormous respect for traditional process and a very strong interest in experimental, alternative, and non-toxic printmaking techniques.
Working in my studio, I spend a lot of time thinking about how memories of our pasts and hopes for our futures shape who we are in the present. While constantly craving change; wishing for change; and working for change in my life, anxiety and fear accompany my anticipation of change actually occurring.
I make work about desire, change, and living in pursuit of wholeness despite fear, anxiety, and obstacles. In these particular pieces, desire and yearning manifest themselves as physical thirsts for dirt and tears: gritty, basic, and pure. Hopeful, I pair each thirst with a talisman.
While acknowledging the scariness presented by the possibilities of change and failure, this work channels optimism and focuses on the process of setting goals, developing a strategy, working hard, and making progress.
Artist Bios
Virginia Batson's installations, works on paper, mixed media sculpture, and artist's books have been exhibited internationally. Her artist’s books are in university and museum collections in Philadelphia, New York, and the UK. Her background in dance and writing, especially in improvisational forms, informs her studio work.
Batson was born in New Orleans in 1974 and lives in Collingswood, New Jersey. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree from The University of the Arts in 2002 and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Tulane University in New Orleans. She is a graduate of Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick, Massachusetts.
Rebecca Gilbert earned her MFA in Printmaking / Book Arts from The University of the Arts and her BFA in Printmaking from Marshall University. She is a resident artist at Nexus Foundation for Today’s Art and a member of inliquid. Rebecca teaches Printmaking at The University of the Arts and performs book conservation at The Wagner Free Institute of Science. She has exhibited regionally and nationally.