ar

Somehow, in this marvelous collaboration, the words and the images rhyme. Here and there the words probe the edges of terror, while the forms put forth the argument of innocence. Actually, so do the words, while the felt forms carry a disquiet of their own. Also, some words and some letters enter the forms and become forms themselves. Does the word "innocence" apply? I believe it does, but only with the understanding that innocence can't be understood, and that innocence is not small. "Tenderness" applies. "Beauty" applies. "Humor" applies. There is a story in this book too, the story of a marriage. The story involves cats. At the very end, unaccountably, a dog's voice chimes in. — Joel Agee   Cyrilla Mozenter is known for her gouache-painted, pencil-drawn (and written) works on paper and hand stitched industrial wool felt freestanding and wall pieces that include the transplantation of cutout letters, letter-derived and pictogram-like shapes. These works hover in the space between two and three-dimensions. Many of the titles and words that appear in the work come from Gertrude Stein's writing. They are playful and absurd, defying singular interpretations. Solo exhibitions include Present Participle, 57W57 Arts, See Why and the failed utopian, Lesley Heller Gallery, NY; the failed utopian & Other Stories, FiveMyles, Brooklyn; warm snow, Adam Baumgold Gallery, NY, and the Garrison Art Center, Garrison, NY; More saints seen, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; and Very well saint, The Drawing Center, NY. She has produced two collaborative books with photographer/writer Philip Perkis: ar, AC Books, San Diego, 2023, and the bilingual Octave, anmoc press, Seoul, 2020. A 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, she has also received two fellowships from the NY Foundation for the Arts and two project grants from The Fifth Floor Foundation. She has been in residence at Pianpicollo Selvatico, Dieu Donné Papermill, and Instituto Municipal de Arte e Cultura-Rioarte. Her work is in numerous public collections including the Brooklyn Museum and the Yale University Art Gallery. She taught for many years in the MFA program at Pratt Institute. Philip Perkis is an American photographer and educator. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and his work is held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Carnegie Museum of Art, J. Paul Getty Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.   "Mozenter's cut letters and shapes are an eye chart; they test our vision. Perkis' words are stitched together with precision and awe, like Mozenter's felt. 'If I could only do it over I would do it right.' But 'wrong' holds magic. Intuition is beauty. Love is the strongest bond." - Gail Buckland "In ar, Philip and Cyrilla draw us into a world we're unaware of until we find ourselves there. In the way the spareness and elegance of Cyrilla's felts harmonize with Philip's gracile utterances, we come to understand how fragments make a whole. What is missing is what is there. And because we have to fill — with our imaginations — the absences, it is finally we who are there. ar is a moving and profound experience. It is a beautiful book." - Paul Kane "ar is a playful exercise in freedom for Cyrilla Mozenter and Philip Perkis, opposite the formal presentations normally required as part of their lengthy, well-established professional careers. The book showcases working methods in mid-completion; enters thought processes as they occur; and hears preoccupations, interests, and vulnerabilities as they are contemplated." - Nancy Romine Walters