Heather Rasmussen: animal, vegetable, mineral

About

The Pit is pleased to present the second solo exhibition of Los-Angeles based photographer Heather Rasmussen at the Los Angeles gallery. The exhibition will be on view from September 4 - October 16, 2021. There will be a public reception on Saturday, September 4, 2021 from 4-7pm.  Face coverings are required to enter the gallery at this time.

In her second solo show at The Pit, Heather Rasmussen continues her photographic explorations of the body, in carefully composed images that draw on art historical and autobiographical references. Animal, vegetable, mineral will feature several new photographs as well as a photo-based sculpture composed of a ballet barre and a facsimile of a quilted packing blanket bearing an image of Rasmussen’s torso.

In the photographic series, Rasmussen features her own body as well as vegetables and fruit, drawing parallels between a body shaped by a lifetime of ballet and more recently pregnancy, and the suggestive forms of produce grown in her father’s garden. The elongated curves of Tromboncino zucchini recall elegant limbs, while plump, bulbous gourds echo swollen bellies. Still-lifes composed of moldy fruit capture a range of colors, reflecting a fading vibrancy that will nourish new life. Inspired by the history of still life, she has photographed dramatically-lit groupings of vegetables on black backgrounds, in homage to artists such as Spanish Baroque painter Juan Sánchez Cotán and Raphaelle Peale, considered the first still life painter in America. She lays bare the tools of her process however, leaving visible the clips and edges of the seamless paper used as a backdrop.

Throughout her work, Rasmussen employs mirrors, doubles, and repetition, but makes use of no digital manipulation or camera trickery. The illusions created in the tableaus she arranges are captured with a straightforward honesty of method that underscore the complexity  of her process. In deceptively layered compositions, she incorporates mirrors to double body parts or copy segments of other photographs. With Photo-multigraph #3 (2021), she recreates a photographic novelty from the turn of the 20th century in which a single subject would be captured from five angles in one image, though her version makes clear the trickery.  Rasmussen also uses actual mirrors in some works, expanding the scope of the reflections to include not just specific objects of her choosing, but the gallery setting and viewers themselves.

This playful questioning of what is before us extends into three dimensions with Torso packing blanket/quilt, barre/rack (2021). Rasmussen begins with an image of her body imprinted with a pattern from her ballet leotard, which bears a resemblance to scars, hinting at bodily trauma. This is printed onto a quilted blanket, the stitched chevron pattern overlaid onto the photographic one. Ballet barre doubles as blanket rack, conjuring associations with domesticity. The milestones of Rasmussen’s life are collapsed into one enigmatic object.

For inquiries about the exhibition please email info@the-pit.la