| “Reconstruction” explores the many subtleties and shapes of survival and transformation using all manner of media, from painting to video and performance; the nightly news is a litany of destruction. The wreckage surrounds us—towers fall, waves crash, the world is at war and love is hard to find. But reconstruction and renewal spring eternal even from our contaminated contemporary soil. The stamina of desire and vitality asserts itself anew in the work of these eight artists. Sandra Bermudez hints at the vagaries of marriage and childhood depictions of commitment with the lush-lashed, dewy eyed “Little Birds” atop towers of white pillows. |  |
Reconstruction – Leah Oates
“Reconstruction” explores the many subtleties and shapes of survival and transformation using all manner of media, from painting to video and performance; the nightly news is a litany of destruction. The wreckage surrounds us—towers fall, waves crash, the world is at war and love is hard to find. But reconstruction and renewal spring eternal even from our contaminated contemporary soil. The stamina of desire and vitality asserts itself anew in the work of these eight artists.
Sandra Bermudez hints at the vagaries of marriage and childhood depictions of commitment with the lush-lashed, dewy eyed “Little Birds” atop towers of white pillows. Bermudez’s petite birds are sweet and fragile creatures that sleep beautifully and peacefully atop layered white pillows much like fairy tale creatures. However, the birds are colored like cartoon characters and have exaggeratedly long lashes, which hints at the magical aspects of childhood dreams and at the tremendous and fragile beauty of children.
Stephanie Brody-Lederman’s paintings are inspired by the complexity of human interaction and the diversity of each life. The surface of Brody-Lederman’s paintings are quite textured and layered and are similar to sites that are aging and decaying but that are also incredibly beautiful at once. Her works have handwritten text that catches the fragments of thoughts that flit through our mind during a day or a moment. The layered surfaces and stream of consciousness text give the paintings a dreamy, yearning quality that reveals the mystery and magic of everyday existence despite human loss. Brody-Lederman’s works are ultimately about finding humor and transcendence in struggle.
Karen Marston’s paintings are dreamy, richly colored imaginings of hearts, lungs and bronchia breathing underwater or entwined with twisting tree branches, organs roosting in nests of veins and twigs. Beneath the surface of these painterly explorations of body and environment, metaphors unfold speaking of pain, loss and regeneration. Marston’s paintings deal with being submerged or cocooned within water, veins or blood, and have a feeling of being closed in or submerged. But, despite this effect, ultimately the focus is on emerging from being contained and suffocated by another. The main elements in Marton’s work are the body, water and nature. Water is a metaphor for uncontrollable emotions, tangled and wild tree branches are a metaphor for fear and the body is a metaphor for the universal, genderless self, which desires freedom. In this way, Marston’s work is very much about transformation from loss and painful emotional states.
Performance team Praxis (Delia Bajo and Brainard Carey) constructed Death Clock, which shows the death toll in Iraq of American civilians and Iraqis, as well and the escalating cost of the war. The Death Clock was changed weekly on the sidewalk in front of Chashama Gallery to bring awareness to the continuing loss of lives and to the cycle of loss in both countries. The Death Clock was inspired by the National Debt Clock installed by Seymour Durst next to the gallery and right next to the IRS during the Reagan Administration. The Debt Clock updates the amount each American would owe if the time came to pay back the money America has loaned from others. The Death Clock is tightly tied to the Debt Clock as the cost of the war increased the amount each American owes due to the bad governing of the current administration. There is of course a greater loss in terms of human life, and the Death Clock is shocking and moving in its straightforward and innocent display of very chilling statistics. Praxis wrote out the numbers in brightly colored chalk like one sees in children’s playgrounds and collaborated with sound artist Firehorse for the opening. The combination of the simple media of chalk, which is impermanent and which washes away from the effects of people walking by or from the rain, and Firehorse’s music created an affecting and direct experience of continuing loss.
Orlin Mantchev’s abstract paintings of the Newfoundland landscape deal with how the local people, culture and land have been overlooked and neglected but how, in the end, the local culture has thrived through its own means and traditions. The surfaces of Mantchev’s paintings have been burned and then carved. They undulate like the sea. This surface represents the manner in which the land and people have been treated and scarred. Layered on top of this surface are raised islands of color that represent the spirit of the people of Newfoundland who are very vital and alive despite years of hardship, economically and culturally.
Pierre St-Jacques’s nine-part video work titled Interiors is about the complex nature of human difference and the intricacy of perception and human interaction. Each work examines a different relationship and the sometimes hilarious or scary or magical outcome of individuals trying to connect and live with one another. One work shows a very dysfunctional and hostile relationship between a gentle son and his domineering father and is very much about emotional loss by emphasis of small details on how space is navigated and shared, or not. Another shows two roommates in an apartment trying to warm themselves, and with nothing to eat—it is about how they turn the situation into something transformative. Another shows two roommates having a huge and hilarious argument over a camera and a book. The series is about how humans define psychological space and set an emotional tone for their lives and those with which they live or interact.
Auriane Sokoloski’s performance work and photography deals with the female gothic, with female traditions and the different manner in which women experience fear and longing. Sokoloski’s work seems specifically feminine yet strong and gently revelatory in terms of its bold and melancholy way of exorcising loss into something quite beautiful. For the opening, Sokoloski gave a performance titled Time Square Gothic in which she walked though Time Square in a wedding gown and interacted with locals, tourists, a preacher and some political activists dresses like majorettes. She then ended up at the gallery where participants were asked to cut off items attached to the trail of her dress and also some of the dress itself. Other performances included Ukrainian Lament in which Sokoloski made beet soup outside the gallery and offered it to people passing by as well as Embody Me in which she collaborated through a series of body casts. The idea here was to shed oneself of a burdensome collection of emotional baggage. Sokoloski’s work is consistently about self-transformation out of loss and how ugliness can be turned into work that is deeply personal, beautiful and universal.
In closing, the central aim of “Reconstruction” is to show that human loss is universal and, as a result, so is the process of regeneration. The artists in “Reconstruction” have taken their own personal loss or that of others and made it into works that encapsulate transcendences and that are fundamentally about the beauty of human striving and personal transformation through loss.
With special thanks to Karen Marston.
