Biography
MJ Bronz is the collaborative team of sculptors Michael w. Howes
and Jenny Authement. Howes holds the M.F.A. from the University of
Alabama and is the Arts Coordinator of Visual Arts in the School of
Fine Arts at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, LA, USA. He exhibits
with the Ward-Nasse Gallery in New York City and the Baton Rouge Gallery
in Baton Rouge, LA. Jenny Authement, an adjunct Instructor of Art at
Nicholls State University, holds the M.F.A. from the University of
Georgia and is the recipient of a Louisiana Division of the Arts Fellowship
for 2003. She has exhibited throughout the southeastern United States,
in New York City at the Viridian Gallery, and at the Palazzo Vagnotti
in Cortona, Italy. She also exhibits at the Baton Rouge Gallery in
LA. MJ Bronz created “Salt
Mine Rescue Memorial” in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana in 1998. This
past December 2003, MJ Bronz exhibited in the invitational Biennale Internazionale
Dell’Arte Contemporanea in Florence, Italy. Their installations
explore links between the natural and spiritual worlds using a variety
of materials, sound, and light. Michael w. Howes and Jenny Authement
have worked jointly for several years creating Having Sanctuary,
Beyond Distance, Apparitional Labyrinth, and Journey of Transitions:
Tibet.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Venerable Dwells
All that is, is holy.
Transformation is through the body.
Through dense physical structures, the "dwells", embody the unmanifested -- birthlessness, deathlessness, eternal presence. With surrender, ephemeral flowing portals enable transcendence that manifests into spiritual realization -- the "venerable".
A life/death/life journey has instinctually led us
in the evolution of collaborative installations. In Having Sanctuary, transitory
cocoon figures, shrouded shells are energized with the use of subtle
lighting or water-like reflections. These mystical figures allow change
in many forms to be absorbed or repelled, just as the semi-permeable
membrane of a cell accepts or rejects the elements that surround it.
Our survival, as that of the cell, depends upon our understanding of
the circumstances we encounter. Enveloping forces serve to either create
layers of reality that can encapsulate and restrain or allow us to break
free, making us ready for change --- a new process of transition.
Beyond Distance explores the movement of substance and spirit
as a mystery that engages our beliefs in what we know of the physical
world and our awareness of eternal truths. To travel not only implies
a place to begin and a destination, but also assumes a path between.
The point at which we continue to find ourselves is that place, Beyond
Distance.
Next, the inexplicable, what we know of this life and what it will
become, is made even more complex by the mythologies of various cultures. Apparitional
Labyrinth unites the image and idea of these inherent mysteries
of life with the hope of providing some comfort through an understanding
of forces one cannot see or touch.
Ultimately, in Journey of Transition: Tibet, colored sutra-streamers
blue as the sky, orange for fire, and yellow like the earth transcend
from the Tibetan Plateau to the earthbound prayer markers. Colors,
fabrics, and forms create the substances that link the physical world
to the spiritual realm. The movement and light of these substances
are a metaphor for the continuing voice of prayer. The journey is the
transition between the two.
