MATERIA | A Temporal Collaboration at Three Atypical Sites

About

Part One: Dematerialization/Dystopia

Artists: Allison Coleman, Luke Firle, Lindsay Metivier, Joy Meyer, and Vanessa Murray

Friday, March 31, 6-8 pm + Saturday, April 01, 2-5pm

Statement

Part One of Materia explores the concept of Dematerialization to its dystopian ends.

In this show we dematerialize the referents of our art practices. We have deconstructed our art practices to their alchemical and discrete natures. By separating and breaking down our materials and concepts from their origins we aim to create a sense of entropy in the space.

Metivier’s bowl of fruit was left in the sunlight and is transformed by the slow decay of time. Firle’s unfulfilled urge to save and hoard all of his wood shavings becomes the silent remnants of cedar, walnut, pecan, and pine.

Meyer’s clipped faux fur was previously a performative substrate. Here the scraps twist and curl in a gradual disorder. Beneath it, the lambskin becomes an absurdist pedestal.  Coleman, a surrealist painter, offers an amassment of human hair as a nod to Oppenheimer's tea cup and saucer as well as a reference to the bristles of a brush.

The surfaces of Murray’s paintings are emphasized through the accumulation of layers. The history of her process and decisions regarding color relationships have been scraped from her palette and the cavities of her paintings. The detritus remains become a precarious composition.

The presence of these artifacts in relationship to their representation as photographs creates another layer of disconnection as well as a sense of dislocation from their origins. This show intends to evoke a space of contemplative unease about the past and future.