Petrified Wastage
On view: September 1st–October 15th
Artists: Noah Kashiani, Millicent Kennedy, and Olivia Zubko
The past four generations have grown up on technology that outdates itself quickly but is less quick to disappear. By way of afterlife your broken tools, inoperable fans, Halloween masks and acrylic scarves may not be what you envisioned carrying on your memory. The three artists featured in this exhibition are interested in the poetics and critique of this ongoing reality. Petrified Wastage takes on detritus as monument.
Fresh grass makes its way through the holes of a preserved discarded scarf. Broken obsolete tech is quilted into dyed fabric by hand, preserving and memorializing them. Worn clothes and costumes become rigid and crystalline. Collectively these works fulfill a fantasy of structure and new life, using discarded, devalued, or broken materials.
In actions that mimic alchemy, limp textiles become rigid stone veils, crystal obelisks, and shrouded fossils. The high chroma colors mimic seductive bright plastics, while crystals, stone, and plants ground the work in the natural world.
Independently these artists have used the language of archeology about their works, referencing fossils and field notes. Implying that these acts of unexpected re-creation are also a process of discovery.