Tibbie Dunbar
June 18th - August 14th, 2011
Fifth Floor Gallery is pleased to host Tibbie Dunbar's first solo show at the gallery, Line of Her Own. The show presents Dunbar's pencil drawings with embroidered details alongside two large wall installation drawings. The drawings portray vignettes of female childhood and the red embroidered thread brings a nefarious quality to certain elements. There is an earnestness to the naive drawing style yet the assurance of each line lies in contrast to the innate vulnerability of the subject. The resulting composition alludes to a mysterious hidden narrative yet speaks with the clarity of a designer. The wall installations take this narrative and the three dimensionality of the red thread and increases the scale to life-sized proportions. These installations are made from acetate lines which hover directly above the surface of the wall bringing an ephemeral quality to the pieces.
Dunbar is an L.A. based artist and is also the Director of the Architecture and Design Museum of Los Angeles. She received her BA from Skidmore College in 1985 and her MFA from the State University of New York in 1991.