The artists in this exhibition, in myriad ways, interrogate and complicate our understanding of the distinct qualities of individual senses. Their work incorporates the haptic and the aural, recalls the corrosive action of chemicals, evokes the splintering of light, and plays with conceptions of the weighty and weightless.
In Peter Shelton’s (PO’73) sculptures, mass, material, and biomorphic form interact in complicated ways. Denise Marika (PO’77) projects tender flesh onto steel, framed and bisected with fur. Grunting exhalations mark the effort of her repetitive movements. Céleste Boursier-Mougenot creates installations in which sound and sculptural form merge and which he describes as improvisational musical performances. Helen Pashgian’s (PO’56) epoxy resin painting captures and fractures light. The human form floating in Sandeep Mukherjee’s drawing seems to hover between states. Drawn in precise anatomical detail, it recedes and reappears in washes of color as if fluctuating between form and field of energy. Susan Rankaitis builds complex layered images that draw attention to the physical chemistry of photography. Allan deSouza’s scanned family snapshot, laden with the accumulation of the physical detritus of the living body, anchors photographic representation to the physical. Robert Stivers blurs the distinctions between stasis and motion, as well as between flesh and sculpted marble, drawing attention to the less obvious haptic differences between the inert and the conscious.
Reception in conjunction with the symposium Sense and Sentiment on Friday, February 10, 5:00—7:00pm
