“Material” Exhibition
Storefront Ten Eyck
This event has ended.
MATERIAL features work by Katie Bell, Judith Hoffman, and Jessica Segall that presents process and raw matter as content. Consumption, utility, lifecycle and resource privilege are themes engendered through found and repurposed building material and domestic supplies. Using wood, plaster, aluminum and plastic, the artists combine elements of everyday environments, objects that are familiar, sensory, and tactile.We know their touch and temperature by running our hands over walls and from the flooring beneath our feet. The artists’ constructions give new life to common objects while also speaking to the history and future of materials and exploring questions involving the process of creation and decay. The why, how and “for how long?” of matter and fabricated objects.
Katie Bell’s studio is a test site in which she gathers objects, then examines and manipulates them in the process of building and asking questions. The artist investigates the history of the material. What is behind it? In time what will it become? A building offers a visual metaphor for this inquiry: the surfaces and layers behind the walls, the multilayered structure composed to house us. Bell writes, “Pulling up the rug, opening the closet, and turning up the blinds are a source of material. The building process is one of excavation through time and place. It is through material that allows the ideas to unravel.” The artist mirrors this process of unearthing and exploring with compiling and constructing.
Judith Hoffman’s work embodies decay through the construction of ephemeral analogs of durable, man-made structures. These sculptural bodies are acted upon by both natural elements and the viewing audience, bringing about a recapitulation of the natural life of an object in an accelerated, observable time frame. Sculptures often employ skewed perspectives and disproportionate relationships to challenge the body’s perception of the object and elicit multiple readings. Watching a thing fall apart brings closer to mind the object’s makeup and assembly, revealing the normally concealed conditions of its production and the alienation brought about by its commodification. This transformation from complete to fragmentary and from sanctuary to decay allows us not only to reconceive existing structures but also to participate in processes that would normally go unnoticed. We may observe how material evolves, settles and withers over time.
Jessica Segall’s multidisciplinary practice comprises sculpture, performance and video. A combination of wit and elbow grease, her work investigates the link between creativity, humor and survival. Segall is a builder of boats and bivouacs, a developer of off-grid technologies. Risk, vulnerability and a conscious ecology underlie all of her work. Within her practice, Segall maintains a position of radical optimism, contemplating extinction with resourcefulness as its cagey counterpoint. The artist uses the material of salvage to poignantly convey ideas of permanence and endurance, of saving and salvation.
Media
Schedule
from September 07, 2013 to October 13, 2013
Opening Reception on 2013-09-07 from 18:00 to 21:00