Web/ Veil
A site-specific installation: steel wire, bullet
weights. 10'(hight) x 17'(width) x 9'(max depth).
Web/ Veil was created for At the Moment: Constructing,
Deconstructing and Reconstructing, an
invitational exhibit at Oak Room Gallery, University of Northern
Colorado (Greeley). September 1 - October 23, 2010. Curated
by Kris Heinz-Nelson and Stephanie Newton.
Web/ Veil grows out of
the intersection of minimalist form with ideas of traditionally
feminine textile craft and the Classical identification between women's
work and spider web- both literal and metaphorical (spinning, weaving).
As I often do, I've developed the piece from an initially ordered,
geometric structure, towards an increasingly organic and open one. Here
I started with a sheet of regular hexagons; once those were in place I
disrupted them with passages which seemed at once lace-like and
web-like. As I've proceeded the sheet has become riddled, irregular,
and prone to growth in any direction. The notion of this object as a
web has largely guided my use of the space: spiders are opportunistic,
and so am I (so was Homer's Penelope). Thus I've given Web/ Veil its
shape in response to the conditions and constraints I found in the
gallery- the available space (even parts that aren't typically used for
displaying art), the available attachment points, and consciousness of
the other artworks this piece shares visual space with. This
adaptability is interesting to me as more than a byproduct of
site-specific work. For me it feels essential to my practice: far from
the heroic modern, it is perhaps a more feminine stance; certainly it's
a contemporary one.
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