Secondary Context
Opening Reception:
October 12th from 6-9pm
Second Reception:
November 9th from 6-9pm
Gallery Hours:
On view Saturdays 12-5pm through December 2nd
October 12, 2023 - December 2, 2023
At what point does the act of preservation tip into destruction? Human interventions that are meant to preserve can have the effect of eroding the understanding that was sought, and creating new meanings to those unfamiliar with their origins.
Both Christina P. Day and Sam Whalen use layers of creative practice that accumulate like coats of paint in an old home. Whalen intentionally disintegrates her images, leaving us with transparent ghosts of the source materials, while Day reassembles the remnants of flooring into tributes of their former lives, and preserves sentimental fabrics in handmade vinyl encasements. Both artist’s works remain in a constant state of change, renewal, and degradation; embodying our human desire to grasp the ungraspable. Using these inverted methods, both artists arrive in the same realm, producing ethereal works that function as relics in a secondary context.
Curated by Lou Serna, Kate Testa, and Jacqueline Yvonne Tull
Sam Whalen Artist statement:
Fueled by hypochondria and anxiety, my practice is an exploration of the mind-body connection. A constant observation of the rhythmic fluctuations between growth and decay. The work that I create is the by-product of hypervigilance spawned from both childhood instability and living in a female body. It crystallizes moments when my control is challenged, such as in times of high emotional reactivity or through autonomous bodily response. I investigate the perspective warping potential in extreme states of pleasure and pain. Through various methods of abstraction, the human form is dissolved. Sometimes it liquifies into a hardly recognizable phantom. Other times it mutates into an abomination. The seemingly distinct edges of the body and mind are actually mutable.
Christina P. Day Artist statement:
In the way that people tend to keep things for too long, or save things for later, I make work that is in the language of the renovated: the couch seat cover tailored to match the seat that is never actually used; trim work painted fresh again and again. Somewhere between using things and trying to save them from ourselves, our efforts create a situation where our things outlast us. I find metaphors about person and place inside of this.
In my sculptural work, I am interested in handling found materials in a way that enhances a quality of inherent history. I work materials to physically fuse a now with a then. Surfacing forms with found material has become an important part of my vocabulary, whether I am speaking in architecture or in clothing, both holders for time and lived experience of the body. The dents, scars, and physicality of previous ownership speak to the mirror materials can become over time. Stabilizing things through solid construction in my building practice is a metaphor for remembering, or rather, not-forgetting.