This piece is an obvious and humorous homage to one of the keystones in modern art Yoko Ono’s piece “Yes painting” from 1966. By inverting the scale of the ladder and changing the word yes to no and playing on the negative/ positive of the word NO/ ON, there is  a duality that allows the viewer to not only think about the positive affirmation of the original but to choose how to interpret this anomalous presentation. The piece references the institutional domain which once allowed the viewer to climb a ladder to see Yoko Ono’s Yes, but over time, erected a barrier between the viewer and the affirmation by physically stopping the viewer from touching the work.

This work investigates the human obsession with adventure and our eternal pursuit of that which we perceive to be unexplored. It references the fact that we are each seeking an experience to validate and prove that we are living, that we are indeed alive. We each hope that we will, at some point, encounter an experience on our voyage in life that will reverberate within us. We seek particular answers in the vastness of time and space to situate our selves and yet we are given only rudimentary tools for our expedition. Our quest is often a predominantly solitary experience that more often than not, reveals more questions than answers, with little room for genuine comprehension.

Gold vinyl lettering spans 45 feet across the atrium wall at the Rochester Art Center in Rochester, Minnesota. Boldly stating “If you can’t make it right make it big”, the text is self-referential, commenting on it’s own scale. It also references the institution, the notion of artwork within such an institution and contemporary culture as a whole.

WITH THANKS TO FRANCESCA CAVILIA, LAUREN DRASLER, SARA KANTOR, ELIZABETH CHARLOTTE KERSTEIN
CINEMATOGRAPHY BY KEVIN PONTUTI

It is universally acknowledged that a happy life is a good life, and yet, as a civilization we are becoming increasingly depressed, stressed and removed from life’s simple pleasures. In this piece, four women are filmed in their own home, reading from different books, each advising the best way to pursue happiness. The viewer enters the gallery space where the women are projected onto each of the four walls. As the visual language is reminiscent of instructional movies, infomercials and the lost art of storytelling, the viewer waits for a narrative to be gifted beyond that which they are immediately given. Headphones on the wall allow the viewer to listen to one track at a time, further isolating the women from each other. The women are singing from their texts in an operatic fashion. As we listen to how we should best become happy, the gulf between intention and reality becomes wider and more insurmountable.

This piece questions our never-ending quest for answers to the unanswerable. As a bottomless well, the black hole speaks to our fascination with the concept of nothingness, our embedded fear of complete solitude and ultimately our own mortality.

[Exhibited here with You never told me it was going to be like this]

The absorption and assimilation of one edifice into another changes the inherent meaning of a particular space. The Parthenon is regarded as an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece, Athenian democracy and one of the world’s greatest cultural monuments. This installation creates a contemporary hybrid between one part of a collective cultural history and another (The Rochester Art Center) that challenges the viewer’s idea of what transpires inside a contemporary art gallery. The work alludes to the more enigmatic adoration of the space within the space itself. The unobtainable yet desirable, that lies just outside the realm of our immediate comprehension. Thus questioning the collective admiration for the contemporary exhibition space by referencing already established cultural signifiers.

Just above head height, a shelf lines the wall of a room, with a white-painted facade in the shape of a mountain range. From behind the mountains, a flickering image of changing-colored lights illuminates the wall of the gallery. The sounds of musicals can be faintly discerned playing in the background. Six DVD players behind the mountain range play the greatest hit movies of Rodgers and Hammerstein.

This work creates a tongue in cheek, time-honoured look at the all-encompassing American ideal. The mountain range functions as both a visual indicator and as a barrier hiding the reality of the American dream. Everything behind the range is based on artificiality, illusions and technical stupefaction. Although the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical language often speak overtly of social issues, the focus here is on the creation of modern myths within the construct. Whatever the circumstances the musical language inherently becomes warped, iniquitous and misconstrued. It becomes an imitation of itself and no longer carries the same account of the original language. All that is left is a faltering mirage of noise and light.

By taking a contemporary popular phrase (To infinity and beyond) and introducing it in a different context, this work is commenting on the status of art and its longevity. Symbolically the ladder represents progress, ascension, and passage through various levels of initiation. However, in this case the ladder also functions as a conduit between the wall and the light, intersecting the space to question our gradual acquisition of knowledge. The rungs of the ladder reflect and carry light through space and by doing so both absorb and transmit the literal meaning of the text.

12 MONITOR VIDEO INSTALLATION
DIMENSIONS VARIABLE
1 HOUR 28 MINUTES DURATION

CINEMATOGRAPHY BY EVAN DROLET COOK

An open call was held for volunteers to come and recount the plot from the original three Star Wars films, on camera, alone in the studio. Participants were asked to wear black and retell the story to the best of their ability. On twelve monitors, the viewer is confronted with the cacophony of people simultaneously recounting their interpretations.