Rosewood Gallery will present the work of Brenda Jones and Cathy Breslaw during an exhibit that will run through April 25.

Jones will show her hand constructed and sewn paper articles of clothing and Breslaw will show her abstract, layered plastic mesh wall pieces.

Brenda Jones, of Cheney, KS, received her MA in painting and photography from the Wichita State University in Wichita, KS. She is currently teaching art at Wichita East High School and at Friends University in Wichita. Jones has received the Fullbright Award to teach and study in Argentina and the Japan Fullbright Memorial Fund to study the role of the kimono in Japan. The clothing articles are primarily aprons and jackets, which are reminiscent of women, remembered, imagined and known.

With each hand-sewn piece, she addresses women’s issues and feels more connected to her grandmother, who was an alterations lady for a major department store. The works are bigger than life sized and created mainly from paper, but include more unique materials such as tea bags, chopsticks, wax, seaweed, used coffee filters and used drier sheets.

Cathy Breslaw, of Carlsbad, CA, received her MFA in Visual Arts from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, CA, and her BA from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Breslaw has received the Sue Walker Memorial Fellowship and her work in included in the collections of several organizations, including American Graphics Inc., Maxwell Technologies and Amerigraph LLC. Her abstract, plastic mesh forms combine aspects of painting, weaving, craft, fashion and sculpture by focusing on elements of color, line, texture and pattern. These large-scale pieces are process-oriented and follow an intuitive improvisational approach. Her materials, processed in Taiwan and shipped to numerous countries around the globe, are normally used by the wholesale grocery industry to create sacks for selling and carrying fruits and vegetables.

In her statement, she explains that the work has an undeniable feminine quality and that “The work combines a poetic sensibility with a handcrafted aesthetic, using cutting, sewing, and reassembling techniques to bring out the latent beauty of the manufactured materials. There is an intimate look at feminism - at the contradiction of the physical strength and durability of the mesh while simultaneously experiencing its delicate and somewhat fragile appearance”.

Breslaw believes her challenge is to transform these ordinary materials from their intended commercial use to a piece of art.

Rosewood Gallery is open Monday through Thursday, 8 am to 9 pm; Friday, 8 am to 6 pm; and Saturday, 9 am to 3 pm. The Rosewood Gallery is programmed through the City of Kettering Parks, Recreation and Cultural Arts Department, with support from the Kettering Arts Council and the Ohio Arts Council.

The Gallery is located in Rosewood Arts Centre, 2655 Olson Drive, Kettering, Ohio. For more information call (937) 296-0294, or visit the web site: www.ketteringoh.org