ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS
2022.02.18–2022.03.31
2022.02.18–2022.03.31
Perhaps the best known zero-sum, hand gesture game; Rock - Paper - Scissors is thought to date back to the Han Dynasty around 206 BCE. It is one of those rare instances in which a customary tradition becomes so vastly shared and adapted, yet with little to no agenda in its expression or reasoning, that its presence in human life feels almost biologically embedded. It is with this spirit of purity that this showcase has been curated; four artists intersect from varying viewpoints, offering the most distilled summation of their current practice.
Rock is precisely the orientation in which we find “Genesis: Life/Death/Life Force”; a collaborative project forged together by Rochelle Nembhard and Gemma Shepherd between 2020 and 2021. Genesis is the manifestation of two artists and women in their pilgrimage across ancient lands in Southern Africa, told through the story of the rocks that hold both the geological and spiritual history of the planet, and thus, our human story. Strikingly, both collaborators vest to each other the title of “artist” - there is no distinction between photographer or muse, rather Genesis is the union of both their visions and private journeys with the Great Mother as told through 35mm and 120mm film, as well as iPhone and drone imagery, a nod to the adaptability and resourcefulness of women, using whatever means they had at any given point. Art as a method for advocacy is the basis of Genesis, inspired by the freedom song “You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock / Wathint’ Abafazi, Wathint’ Imbokodo”.
Paper references Galia Gluckman’s large scale paper cut-outs in which paper as a medium references our most initial curiosity around texture, and the paradox of piecing together our realities. Through bonded pieces, Galia arrives at a descriptive, tangible commentary on our human fascination with tactility and structure - that it is precisely within the boundaries of the forms we create both internally and externally that our experiences of the world hold meaning. Cause and effect, and the flux in the relationship between two aspects, appears to be the balance in which all of time and space unfold together, in order to create the world around us; these works by Galia invite us to hold these delicate, dialectical perspectives in our own abstractions of existence.
Scissors describes Rodan Kane Hart’s most recent sculptural inquiries, in which the use of subtle geometric shapes have been cast to depict the necessity of tension; in order for art to remain resistant to any fixed concept. Traditionally, sculpture has been required to be a direct translation of matter into mineral; with face-value meaning forged through prodigious craftsmanship. While Rodan alludes to certain forms or meaning in this series, these works cut through any dualistic fixations one might have around objects; that in most instances, the role of subjective observer is gifted to us all for our own interpretation.
Rock is precisely the orientation in which we find “Genesis: Life/Death/Life Force”; a collaborative project forged together by Rochelle Nembhard and Gemma Shepherd between 2020 and 2021. Genesis is the manifestation of two artists and women in their pilgrimage across ancient lands in Southern Africa, told through the story of the rocks that hold both the geological and spiritual history of the planet, and thus, our human story. Strikingly, both collaborators vest to each other the title of “artist” - there is no distinction between photographer or muse, rather Genesis is the union of both their visions and private journeys with the Great Mother as told through 35mm and 120mm film, as well as iPhone and drone imagery, a nod to the adaptability and resourcefulness of women, using whatever means they had at any given point. Art as a method for advocacy is the basis of Genesis, inspired by the freedom song “You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock / Wathint’ Abafazi, Wathint’ Imbokodo”.
Paper references Galia Gluckman’s large scale paper cut-outs in which paper as a medium references our most initial curiosity around texture, and the paradox of piecing together our realities. Through bonded pieces, Galia arrives at a descriptive, tangible commentary on our human fascination with tactility and structure - that it is precisely within the boundaries of the forms we create both internally and externally that our experiences of the world hold meaning. Cause and effect, and the flux in the relationship between two aspects, appears to be the balance in which all of time and space unfold together, in order to create the world around us; these works by Galia invite us to hold these delicate, dialectical perspectives in our own abstractions of existence.
Scissors describes Rodan Kane Hart’s most recent sculptural inquiries, in which the use of subtle geometric shapes have been cast to depict the necessity of tension; in order for art to remain resistant to any fixed concept. Traditionally, sculpture has been required to be a direct translation of matter into mineral; with face-value meaning forged through prodigious craftsmanship. While Rodan alludes to certain forms or meaning in this series, these works cut through any dualistic fixations one might have around objects; that in most instances, the role of subjective observer is gifted to us all for our own interpretation.
INSTALLATION
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