Rebecca Gilbert and Kylie Lockwood “Statue Maker”

Cleopatra's

This event has ended.

The second one thought that it would be easy to make the golem, but the first one knew better. The second one wanted to make it out of butter, so that it would be soft, accommodating, and smooth to work with, but the first one said that butter was slippery and hard to hold on to, that they wanted something firm that would stand beside them, perhaps made of bronze or brass. But the second one thought that would never work, it would be heavy and solid, with such weight that it could never be moved and would respond only to heat, and lots of it, so that the only way to change or grow would require burning through all of their fuel. They said that they would be better off making it out of clay, wet and soft, or hard and enduring, slippery and smooth to the touch, but constant when dry. Yet so brittle, said the first one, prone to cracking.

The third one was busy kneading dough. Squeezing it in-between fists and then, gently at first, pounding it until it became consistent and smooth. The third waited for the dough to rise, to swell as the yeast inside it swallowed the sugar and exhaled with long silent sighs. Then they kneaded it again and again, and for some reason, perhaps in an unconscious fit of pique, twisted at the dough and tore at it, until it wrenched apart, leaving jagged edges exposed to the air, porous and rough beside the stretched and smooth skin of the dough around it. But no worry, they kneaded the dough back into a solid piece; then they baked it for hours. While the first and second debated, the third sat in their favorite chair, closed their eyes, and quietly tore the fresh bread into tiny pieces, avoiding the gouts of steam that burst forth from the ruptured surface. They chewed each mouthful only once or twice, wary of the heat, but leaving the bread in their mouth long enough to savor the aroma of newness. In that private darkness there was a kind of magic, seeing shadows in the shadows and shapes in the space between her skin and the sky.

For Statue Maker Kylie Lockwood and Rebecca Gilbert exhibit their work together for the second time, showing a collection of sculptures and collages that experiment with materiality and authorship. Though each artist has their own practice, in this exhibition they allow their individual concerns to occasionally overlap and merge.Through the exploration of process, medium and texture, Lockwood primarily works with casts of porcelain and silicone to represent a collapse of the interior and exterior human body. Gilbert uses components appropriated from both her personal life and popular culture to grapple with her relationship to mass produced artifacts and the burden of nostalgia.

Narrative by Justin Berry