more than an object
more than an object (Solo Show at the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum - WAAM)
While on a yearlong residency in Roswell, New Mexico in 2017, I began collecting bits of broken objects found on the side of the road and then faithfully recreating them on a larger scale in the studio by hand. Close observation and reproduction result in prolonged attention. Attention begets value and accrued attention and care become devotion. I treat the objects I’ve collected as relics. Shifted to a singular state from their former identity as mass-produced multiples, they evade market-driven value systems.
For more than an object, I’ve continued this project using various materials, including taxidermy clay, epoxy putty, metallic suspensions, cold patinas, acrylic gouache, and blessed dirt from Chimayo, New Mexico. According to Bill Brown’s “Thing Theory,” an object becomes a “thing” when it breaks. No longer neatly fitting into a category of functionality, the “thing” inhabits a liminal space of projection and possibility. While in New Mexico, I witnessed the pilgrimage to El Santuario de Chimayo, where devotees gather blessed dirt within the destination chapel. The sense that the sacred can exist underfoot in the phenomenological world resonates strongly with my work; anything can be holy.
In the series, Thing Among Things, I create cyanotypes by layering original found objects over transparencies of my pregnant body. There is a connection between the temporal and liminal condition of pregnancy and the found objects transitioning from one state to another. Through this work, I explore the relationship between factory production, art-making, and human procreation, invoking a feminist conversation around labor. I’m also harkening back to spiritualist photography of the 19th century.
This project was juried by Nicole Hayes and created at Interlude Artist Residency. It was made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by Arts Mid-Hudson.
All documentation by Pierre LeHors.