Backscatter

Backscatter brings together artworks that serve as transmissions of largely ineffable experiences that occur during moments of stillness, observation, and introspection. They embody the effects of not just noticing, but reveling in, fleeting glimmers of light that have travelled from inconceivably distant realms to flicker at the threshold of our consciousness; and of listening attentively to the ancestral murmurs and revelations that may awaken within us while we are quietly captivated by the dazzle.

The works in Backscatter lead us to contemplate larger themes of mortality, equilibrium, and the blurred edges of the “self” by interweaving spectacular processes of natural and chemical changes of forms in with speculative images of fluidity and otherworldliness.

Throughout the exhibition, themes of reflection, disintegration, patina, and crystallization recur. 

Ephemeral site-specific installations, by Joetta Maue and Katherine Mitchell DiRico, document and harness visual light phenomena as methods to explore time and perception. “Ordinary Rainbows” is composed of many photographs Maue has taken of prismatic reflections in spaces she inhabits, both domestic and industrial. She incorporates sand, quartz, glass, a pentaprism and a lens- all essential to the development of the photographic process. The juxtaposition of capturing these bits of magic in ordinary interior places alongside an elemental recipe for human innovation exemplifies her proclivity for finding wonder and hope in everyday moments. DiRico’s “Understories” shifts moment by moment depending on the ambient light and air currents present in the room. Large lenses suspended from the ceiling dance in front of a gestural graphite wall painting that includes shards of iridescent film and gauzy collage additions. They magnify her marks and bend light to create a captivating dazzle that challenges the downward pull of drips from murky brush strokes and vertical lines of dark threads that bottom out where the wall meets the floor- spooling into a reflective strip that suggests an unseen continuum below the surface.

Funlola Coker, Jesse Kaminsky, Leah Piepgras, and Esther Solondz create sculptures that engage in various transmutations: of memory, materials, and the human body. Funlola Coker often uses processes of electroforming semi-precious metals, forging steel, and carving stone to create sculptures that fragment and recontextualize protective and identifying features of the body (hair and skin), and incorporates imagery from Afrofuturism as well as functional objects like tools for navigation or currency (cowrie shells), to create portals between the western culture in which she lives, and the Yoruba people in Nigeria, where she is from. Leah Piepgras’  “Body Mandala” wall installation simultaneously deconstructs, replicates, and radiates the artist’s body. Stark white, pendant-like, casts of her sensory parts – from fingers and toes, to eyes, nose and mouth, nipples and vulva– are suspended on brass chains, appearing to emanate from a singular navel. Through her disintegrated body, she creates a unified, subtly mesmerizing whole. Jesse Kaminsky’s “Water Gate Eye Shard” sculptures also mesmerize, many with eyes that stare back at you. Out of clusters of translucent acrylic granules, glass orbs, and ceramics, he makes glistening abstractions that call up metamorphizing geological wonders, mystical galactic formations, or perhaps the essence of awareness of a deeply internal experience. In contrast to Kaminsky’s undulating and oozing synthetic masses, Esther Solondz uses organic materials to create an arrestingly poetic display of transcendental beauty. Her mulit-tiered tabletop installation displays glass vitrines holding roses, and other botanical forms, that are densely caked with salt crystals and suspended in liquid.  Alongside and intermixed with the vitrines are a delicate and lacey miniature palace made of colored thread and gleaming white, stagmite-like, castle forms (also crystallized with salt). 

Joetta Maue’s drawings further her investigation into the precarious beauty of our daily existence, as she meticulously renders images of cosmic dust, and of her floor sweepings, alternately, with ink on black paper. Leah Piepgras’ gold leaf and acrylic paintings return to the corporeal body. In them she adorns magic carpet-like surfaces with images of internal organs. They appear as if they are among residue from alchemical vapors– seeming at once ancient and eternally becoming.  

Each piece in the show emerges from a practice steeped in time, presence, and a deep curiosity about unnoticed or transitory occurrences. 

In a time of overstimulation, and existential overwhelm, Backscatter invites viewers to be present and on the lookout for moments of strange wonder. A profound awareness of enchanting subtleties can often be gleaned when slowing down and noticing both fleeting external stimuli as well as shifts in our internal landscapes. These times of introspection offer opportunities to reflect and recalibrate and make space for connection with something vast and everlasting..

 – Alicia Renadette, curator
Alicia‘s website