Dissolve Coagulate
Solo exhibition at Turner Gallery, Alfred University, April 2022
In both human bodies and ecology, healing is a layered experience known by its transformative outcomes. Dissolve Coagulate translates the slow, invisible process of healing into textural, visual meditations. I make the invisible seen and felt through working with the elementals: dripping water, erosions of earth, material formed by fire, and the ephemerality of air. These elements function as tools, substances, and subjects of the work. Their intelligences are my collaborators. To articulate these phenomena, I use combinations of materials: carved blocks of salt, blown glass, photographs printed on canvas and silk, and neon.
Informed by post-humanist perspectives on nature’s autonomy and traditions of earth-based spirituality, I draw parallels between the health of our earth as affected by climate change with the health of human bodies. Symbols of contemporary human medicine, such as infusions, intersect with the organic surfaces of nature in sculptures and photographs. The infusions are often represented as organic lines of neon, interrupting the romance of the pastoral. The luminosity of neon, and the photographic flash, become mystic illuminations towards envisioning a new future.
Main wall: Photographic soft sculptures printed on canvas and silk habotai with neon. Wall is 20 feet high, each soft sculpture is 40”x 60”
Floor: Salt, blown glass, and neon sculptures. On New York state-mined rock salt, custom maple plywood false floors, and concrete rocks. Saltwater fountain made of salt-encrusted photograph printed on canvas, carved salt, and rock salt on plywood; illuminated photographic sculpture with stained glass
