NYAB Event - Angela Conant + Kate Harding “MAKE DO”

Angela Conant + Kate Harding “MAKE DO”

Sardine

This event has ended.

SARDINE presents a two-person show titled MAKE DO by artists Angela Conant and Kate Harding.

To MAKE suggests the manifestation of form. To DO is to carry out an action. To MAKE DO is to work with what is around. Observation, memory, economy and invention born of necessity serve the function of doing-what-one-can with what one has available. In the practices of Angela Conant and Kate Harding, both manifest actions into form, a site that considers the reach of the gesturing body and it’s less physical extensions. The objects shown at SARDINE are deictic to action, and could be considered portraits of impressions or movement. Conant’s displacement of dirt or sand by way of sunken fingertips freezes time into a humble monument to an ephemeral impression. Harding’s footfalls, mapping the wooded terrain, articulate a traversed “conversation” and become solid as space folded with time.

Contemporaries in their master’s studies, Conant and Harding did not uncover the similarities in their practices until invited to exhibit together at SARDINE. Through the collaborative process, they discovered parallels in their ways of working, and, more surprisingly, throughout the histories that formed each of their artistic and life perspectives. Though far flung from one another in Harding’s Missouri and Conant’s Vermont, each artist came to know the world in a rural setting, which has fostered remarkably sympathetic interests. In particular, both practices share a process of mining the wonder of the intangible. The works on view at SARDINE for MAKE DO translate an idea through multiple forms by articulating and re-articulating meaning.

In her work for this exhibition, Angela Conant finds space exploration as an example of this search for meaning. Each form is built on her own gesture; her fingers and hands clear components that form celestial bodies. These objects’ evident process of being cast in sand speaks to a notion of the makeup of the world on a particular, human and galactic level. Conant’s recent work repeats content through painting, light and cement. Her video work parodies gender and media politics, incorporating objects and painting. Her practice also encompasses curating and collaborating on artist-run projects. Her work has been exhibited at Electronic Arts Intermix (New York City), The Elizabeth Foundation Project Space (New York City), SPRING/BREAK art show (New York City); Glasshouse Projects (Brooklyn), Interstate Projects (Brooklyn); the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art (Wilmington, DE), Neter (Mexico City, MX), The Sunview Luncheonette (Brooklyn), ICA Baltimore (solo) (Baltimore, MD) and La Mama Gallery (New York City). She has spoken at Boston University’s School of Fine Art and at New York Foundation for the Arts, and was awarded a Critical Writing residency at Recess (New York City) in 2013 and an Artist Residency at the Millay Colony (Austerlitz, NY) in 2014. In 2007, she co-founded The Gowanus Studio Space, an artist-run collaborative in Brooklyn where she served as Artistic Director until February 2014. She received an MFA from School of Visual Arts in 2013.

Kate Harding is an artist living and working between Los Angeles, New York City and rural Missouri. Harding’s work examines the specificity of site and the local to explore concepts of landscape, perception and inter-subjectivity. Seeing her practice as a continuation of purposeful ramblings in the woods that began in early childhood, she undertakes engagement with site as a resonant field and collaborator. Interdisciplinary in material and approach, Harding’s background in garment design and construction often provides a metaphoric structure to her work, as does history, critical philosophy, folklore and the colloquial phrase. Harding received an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2014, holds a BFA from Otis College (Los Angeles, CA), and an AAS from Fashion Institute of Technology (New York, NY). Exhibitions and screenings include Vanity Projects, CP Projects Space, Visual Arts Gallery, Electronic Arts Intermix, The Chelsea Hotel New York, NY; Grace Exhibition Space (solo), SARDINE, Glasshouse, Invisible Dog, Brooklyn, NY; Imperfect Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; On the Ground Floor, Rosamund Felson, Echo Park Film Center, Edward Cella Art + Architecture, SeeLine, Track 16 Gallery, Circus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; East Central College Gallery, Union, MO. Her writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail.