When: Opening Reception: Saturday, November 5, 1-5 pm
Where: East Van Studio (map)
FB: Monument(al)
Jessica Bell, Sarah Gee & Aaron Moran
reconsider and reinterpret monuments in an exhibition titled Monument(al).
Curated by Denise Liu + Linus Lam.
Broadly speaking, a monument communicates and amplifies cultural significance through enduring physical structure. It can also be seen as an abstraction: it symbolizes what is fleeting and transcendental through idealization and formalism.
Contrary to consensus, can a monument be subdued and understated? Can a monument celebrate the present as opposed to the past? Can a monument be something other than a representation of mass aspiration?
MONUMENT(AL) reconsiders the notion of monument and its democracy. Paper, textile and wood are often seen as ephemeral, fugitive and often underestimated, yet here they are sustaining and substantial objects; monuments seeking to immortalize the subtle shift of landscape: whether cerebral, in the case of Sarah Gee; or corporeal, as in the works of Jessica Bell and Aaron Moran.
Three artists all find expression using unusual materials, and all are concerned with geometry as a primary compositional focus: Jessica Bellʼs textile abstractions are naturalistic and topographical while Sarah Geeʼs collaged paper works are hard-edged abstractionist. Aaron Moranʼs found-wood assemblages resemble deconstructed pyramids, cubes and prisms. The combination of approaches is striking: Bell has the perceptive eye of a cartographer, Gee looks within to find the structures of rationality, harmony and balance, while Moranʼs intensely tactile structures hint at the transformational power of reclamation.
Exhibition runs November 5 -12, 2011 | Open to the public 3-7 pm daily, or by appointment.
