http://chicagoartreview.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/minireview-michelle-welzen-collazo-anderson-bernard-williams-what-it-is/

Please join us at What It Is on Sat. Dec 5th for an exhibition of painting and sculpture by Michelle Welzen Collazo Anderson
and Bernard Williams.

Michelle Welzen Collazo Anderson is fascinated with the underlying structure or often called, “natural order” of the universe and how that relates to patterns in our human experience. Her series entitled the “Blum Jerro Series” is a spin-off on a pair of 1950’s bedroom slippers that were manufactured in New York by the Jerro Brothers and sold in Department Stores across the country. Though Michelle’s work is not primarily concerned with the true history of the object, it certainly references its origin and infuses it with new meaning. The stripes and appendages of these shoes are a dominant textile design element. Her aesthetic incorporates geometric design that embodies some of the natural patterns in nature, i.e., the Fibonacci sequence in a manner expressed by the Arte Povera and Op artists. Pattern communicates harmony, discord, error, perfection, cyclic change, small or large aberrations, destruction, renewal, love, wave undulations, etc.

…”The work I am is generating is a response to dynamic elements of design and serves as a discourse between the pervasive aesthetic of our habitual environment and its influence that resounds and changes when combined with the experience of our culture”…

For Bernard Williams his small sculptures function like sketches for him. Often they are produced from fragments of interest which fall to the floor while cutting parts for larger sculptures. They remind him somewhat of the small robots which peel off of the monster robot in the opening scenes of the 2007 Transformers movie. In more intimate spaces, the smaller machine-like jumbles of wood may carry on the business of the mother sculpture, or may take on an unexpected mission.

Bernard writes…”A geometry forms from seemingly random pieces, a house of cards stands firm because of screws, and maybe the next large build is suggesting itself. The large sculptures are everywhere in Chicago… in the buildings, next to buildings, the skeletons of buildings. The frantic construction and evolution of the urban space I drive through every day is inescapable. The urge to stack, screw, glue, and lean parts together seems like the natural way.”

“Michelle Welzen Collazo Anderson and Bernard Williams” continues through Sunday Dec. 20th. 2009. WHAT IT IS is open by appointment only. Please email info@wot-it-is.com for further information. A reception for the artists will be held on Sat Dec 5th from 3pm – 8pm. What It Is is located at 1155 Lyman Ave., Oak Park, IL, 60304. http://www.wot-it-is.com