“We began our collaborative partnership in 1999. As artists from very diverse disciplines, we found common ground in our interest in the landscape, pattern, light and one’s perception and navigation of the natural world. Our projects have ranged from artists books to installation to video with a focus on human interaction with the environment.”
– Rachelle Thiewes and Suzi Davidoff
About the artists
Rachelle Thiewes creates jewelry that is designed to engage and challenge the wearer, making them an active participant, an initiator of sounds and body rhythms. Light, movement, sound, order and chaos are integral elements of her work. Thiewes’ art is in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Museums of Scotland, Victoria & Albert Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Museum of Arts & Design, among others. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including Calder Jewelry, The Art of the Book, Jewellery Moves, One of a Kind: American Art Jewelry, The Best in Contemporary Jewellery, Jewellery in Europe and America: New Times New Thinking, American Craft and Metalsmith. In 2009 she was named “Texas Master” by the Houston Center of Contemporary Craft and in 2010 was nominated for a United States Artist Fellowship. The Stanlee & Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts honored her with the Access & Excellence in the Arts Award in 2014. Thiewes is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship, the University of Texas Regents Outstanding Award for Teaching, and Distinguished Achievement Awards for Research and Teaching at the University of Texas El Paso where she is Professor Emerita in the Department of Art.
Suzi Davidoff is an artist based in the Chihuahuan desert of west Texas, creating drawings, paintings, prints and collaborative installations that explore themes of structure and perception of the natural world. In addition to charcoal, oil, gold leaf and ink, Davidoff uses found organic materials. Moss, clay, cochineal, earth, and lichen collected on her walks are rubbed into the surface of the paper and panels, creating a physical connection between personal experience and finished work.
Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the United States. Recent solo exhibitions include REGENERATION, Zane Bennett Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM and EAST SIDE AND BEYOND, Flatbed Press, Austin, TX. Selected group exhibitions include COMMON LANGUAGE, Albuquerque, NM, TEXAS DRAWS I, Southwest School of Arts and Crafts, San Antonio, TX, SECOND NATURE, Galveston Arts Center, and BEAUTY.CHAOS, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC.
Davidoff’s work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Department of State — Art in Embassies Program, Hallmark Collection, Museum of Texas Tech University and the El Paso Museum of Art, among others. She has been the recipient of a Fiskars Artist’s Residency, a Mid-America NEA Fellowship and a Ford Foundation/Pollack-Siquieros Binational Art Award.
Additional resources
- Flickr – Installation images
- Gallery Guide – On issuu