On the Grounds 2023
Anina Major and Sagarika Sundaram

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On the Grounds 2023 is the third in a series of outdoor exhibitions in the landscape surrounding Al Held’s studio complex and this year we are delighted to present works by Anina Major and Sagarika Sundaram. Taking the idea of home and inspired by the intimacy with which Held crafted the landscape as points of departure, the artists present site-responsive works using clay, fiber, and wood. Both artists employ their media’s unique relationship to environmental systems—for Major, clay derived from the ground and for Sundaram, wool procured from grazing sheep—highlighting that, to make a home, it takes both people and their most cherished matter. For each artist, a deep engagement with material history underscores how culture and nature are entwined.

Major continues her exploration of the diasporic connection to home and moments of nostalgia through a combination of fiber and clay material histories. The two-part installation Between Isles presents a wooden dock on dry land and accompanied by a floating island. Engaging with the site’s freshwater swimming pool, now a pond reclaimed by non-human species, the artist adds a living sculpture to the ecosystem. This isle features woven forms constructed using the artist’s signature plaiting clay technique, an adaptation from traditional Bahamian palm weaving, among plants native to the region. Major carries with her, nurtures and transforms this heritage craft. Her hybrid vessels reorient their symbolism without the flexibility of straw baskets or the impermeability of ceramic water containers. Their porous, leaky nature mirrors the exchanges among natural and cultural systems. Nestled on a mahogany float, the arrangement on the water acts as an offering and makes space for healing. Between the isolated dock and the lush island, Major ponders the diasporic perspective and its ability to transform landscapes—physical and social.

The vibrant spiraling geometries of Sundaram’s felted wool installations echo phenomena of geodes, shells, symbiotic lichen, among other natural wonders. Here she probes the boundaries among species by combining anthropomorphic, botanical, fungal, and mineral forms in niches throughout the landscape. Felted disks spill out from a cracked boulder (perhaps an erratic left by a moving glacier long ago?) and loop around the limbs of trees, like a drawing in space, and bring attention to the animation of matter we typically consider static. The dynamics of the patterning and accumulative shapes suggest a vital life energy which flows through all aspects of the earth. The artist collaborates with an Indian fiber producer, Kullu Karishma celebrating the Central Asian cultures that have long been associated with felt, including nomadic groups who use it for shelter. In these works, wool from the Himalayas and the Hudson Valley co-exist as interlocutors, revealing how our concepts of ‘home’ and ‘here’ are interdependent. For Sundaram wool is a connective tissue among cultures and places in flux. Where humans live with animals, there is felt. Where there is a felt, we find connection. Merino and Shetland wool for the project was provided by Cabbage Hill Farm in Mount Kisco, NY and processed by Battenkill Fibers in Greenwich, NY and Himalayan Gaddi wool was provided by Kullu Karishma from Himachal Pradesh, India.

About the artists:

Anina Major is a visual artist from the Bahamas. Her decision to establish a home contrary to the location in which she was born and raised motivates her to investigate the relationship between self and place as a site of negotiation. By utilizing the vernacular of craft to reclaim experiences and relocate displaced objects, her practice exists at the intersection of nostalgia and identity. She holds an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design and is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies, including the Socrates Sculpture Park Fellowship and serving as a mentor for the Saint Heron Ceramics Residency Program. Her work has been exhibited in The Bahamas, across the United States, and Europe and featured in permanent collections that include the National Gallery of The Bahamas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. This summer her work is also on view at Tern Gallery (Nassau, Bahamas) until May 2023, Maximillian Williams (London, UK) June 29 - August 12, Des Moines Art Center, (Des Moines, IA) June 2 - September 9, and Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, (Brattleboro, VT) June 17 - October 9, 2023. She has an upcoming solo show at Gaa Gallery in Cologne, Germany and a group exhibition with ArtsWestchester in Rochester, NY.

Sagarika Sundaram creates textile tapestry, sculpture and installation using raw natural fiber and dyes. The work observes and abstracts natural phenomena in the form of handmade textiles that generate power and presence. Sundaram has exhibited at the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University, with Nature Morte gallery, Delhi, India and at Frestonian Gallery, London, UK. In 2023 she was a Jerome Hill Artist Finalist (Jerome Foundation). In 2022 she was awarded The Hopper Prize, a Bronx Museum AIM Fellowship and a residency at Art Omi. Sundaram graduated with an MFA in Textiles from Parsons / The New School, NY. She studied at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad and at MICA in Baltimore. She is Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt and is in residence at Silver Arts Projects working out of a studio in 4 World Trade Center, New York. This summer Sundaram has work on view in the show “Provenance” at Visitor Center (Newburgh, NY) April 15 - June 3 2023. In addition she will be showing at Palo Gallery October 28 - December 2, 2023.

River Valley Arts Collective is a Hudson Valley-based, W.A.G.E. certified organization committed to fostering an inclusive creative community that is responsive and attuned to the ecology of our region. Through partnerships with neighboring arts organizations, foundations, studios, and farms, we curate exhibitions, commission new work, organize outdoor installations, give artists both material and monetary grants, coordinate residencies, host workshops, and spark vital discussions. As a nexus for regional artists and artisans to connect and collaborate with each other as well as with the broader community, we create a generative space for experimentation and shared learning. Our efforts foster the production of work that is as aesthetically and conceptually groundbreaking as it is environmentally aware.

Since 2020, River Valley Arts Collective has been proud to partner with the Al Held Foundation on a series of exhibitions presented in Al Held’s former drawing studio as well as outdoor installations on the foundation's grounds.

The Al Held Foundation is charged with the stewardship of Al Held’s art and creative legacy. Based in Boiceville, NY at Held's former home and studio, the Foundation’s mission is to foster the appreciation and advancement of the principles of modern art and the public’s understanding of Held’s contribution to art of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In the last decade the Foundation has facilitated the organization of exhibitions, lent works of art, promoted scholarly research, and conducted educational programs in the United States and abroad. The Foundation is represented by White Cube.

River Valley Arts Collective is grateful for generous support from: Mara Held, Daniel Belasco / The Al Held Foundation, ASD Fund of the Essex County Community Foundation, Athena Foundation, Cabbage Hill Farm Foundation, Nicole Cherubini and Patrick Purcell, The Coby Foundation, Mark Dion, Kristen Dodge, Stef Halmos / Foreland, John B. Koegel, Esq., The New York Foundation for the Arts, The O’Grady Foundation, Robin Panovka, Clay Rockefeller, Rydingsvard Greengard Foundation, Richard Salomon Family Foundation, Hart Perry / Southwood Wood Products, Janice Stanton and Ronald L. Windisch, Jean-Marc Superville Sovak, Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, Helen Toomer / Stoneleaf Retreat, Luke Ives Pontifell / The Thornwillow Institute, and SJ Weiler Fund.

On the Grounds 2023 is organized by guest curator Jess Wilcox. For more information, please contact info@RVACollective.org.

The Al Held Foundation is not open to the public, however guided and self-guide tours of the exhibition are available by reservation, typically at 10 am and 12 pm, for each of the following dates: Saturday, May 13, Monday, June 5, Sunday, June 25, Monday, July 10, Sunday, July 23, Monday, August 7, Sunday, August 20, Monday, September 11, and Saturday, October 14.