Rhumb Line

New Work by Amy Bench and Jenn Wilson

August 16 – September 14, 2019

The easiest way to navigate across the globe is to keep a constant bearing. Naturally, one would think this would be the shortest and straightest route to the desired destination, though surprisingly one would be traveling on the bend of a large spiral called a rhumb line. In Rhumb Line, Amy Bench and Jenn Wilson explore how narratives are structured: always appearing to move forward yet occasionally twisting and bending, obscuring parts of the story. In her work, Amy Bench explores the complex and often contradictory feelings and states of mind associated with childbirth and early motherhood: building and losing connection, being tethered and yearning for escape, fragmentary thinking, and impermanence. Her work is a self reflection of her non-linear postpartum journey. Meanwhile, Jenn Wilson explores the practice of narrative painting — weaving stills from bygone television flops, found photography, memories, comic panels, and images from Song dynasty scrolls. The resulting depictions allow the viewer to freely infer the narrative. Together they demonstrate that artistic expression seldom follows a straight path, but perhaps one of a rhumb line.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Amy Bench is a filmmaker and visual artist who is drawn to the immediacy of film and photography to tell stories of community and resilience. Trained as a cinematographer, her observational style highlights small details of the human experience that transcend formal explanation. Her camera work has screened at festivals including Berlin, SXSW, Sundance, The New York Film Festival, and at MOMA/PS1 and in 2016 she was named a “DP on the Rise” by Paste Magazine. She was the cinematographer on Trans in America: Texas Strong, which premiered at SXSW, won 2 Webby Awards, and has been recently nominated for an Emmy (2019). Her documentary A Line Birds Cannot See won a Special Jury Recognition at SXSW, and Best Short Documentary at Oak Cliff Film Festival (2019). She received her MFA from The University of Texas at Austin in 2010.

Jenn Wilson’s work is a play on fragments, pieced together slowly and deliberately, with gaps left for the viewer to fill. Materially, Wilson’s work has a similar sense of play. Her methods range from traditional materials such as egg tempera and oil to the use of modern, everyday products like nail polish, bleach, and copper. Jenn Wilson is an Austin based artist. Notable exhibitions include TSA LA (Los Angeles), Corbett vs Dempsey (Chicago), Packer-Schopf Gallery (Chicago), American University of Beirut (Lebanon), University of Arkansas Fine Arts Center Gallery, Austin Museum of Art, and Kohler Art Museum in Wisconsin. Her work has been reviewed in Artslant, Newcity Magazine, Austin Chronicle, MW Capacity, TimeOut Chicago, Chicago Magazine, Chicago Reader, and the Chicago Tribune. She received an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008.

This project is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department.