麻豆破解版

More about the exhibition featuring the works of Phaedra Askarinam, Pooja Campbell, Patricia Edwine Poku, Connor Gagne, Andr茅s Izquierdo, and Julia Cheng Zhang

A rending of garments, an inversion of light, a layering of textiles: each physical act marks a transformation. A change in state from one material to another, one continent to another, one generation to another: each transformation points to a transition.

For the six artists on view, 鈥淭ransit鈥� represents more than one kind of transformation or transition. Through sculpture, painting, installation and works that challenge conventional categories, the artists showcase a milestone in their evolution. The way they each use time, space and distance in their works 鈥� sometimes drawing a viewer close in, sometimes reaching for the heavens themselves 鈥� points to the way that art serves as a process for transformation, a vector for transit, a vehicle for change.

In her paintings, Pooja Campbell stages quiet family dramas. The scenes themselves are subdued: Often they depict her children, at rest or at play. Through these still interiors the artist channels her anxieties and desires. Campbell superimposes patterns from her own upbringing in India over these moments with her first-generation American children. With elements of collage and a rich, almost post-Impressionist palette, the artist imagines the experience of her children even as she asserts her own history, exploring the inherent tensions of immigration, motherhood and family.

Phaedra Askarinam鈥檚 performances and installations are rooted in timeless practices. The Iranian American artist鈥檚 tea ceremonies follow an ancient choreography. She ushers viewers into her work by inviting them to take part in this tradition, asking viewers to contribute their used teabags to her installations. At its core her project is an act of empathy: With works such as Healing with a Cup of Tea, which borrows the tile pattern from the former Iranian Embassy in Washington, Askarinam aims to bridge cultural divides between peoples through intimacy. Like artists such as Rirkrit Tiravanija, she also acts to diminish the distance between artist and viewer, empowering the viewer as a participant in her work.

For her project, Patricia Edwine Poku invests her sculptural installations with ancestral symbols from her native Ghana. Her works use marks and patterns known as Adinkra that convey different values. Foremost in Poku鈥檚 work is the Adinkrahene, a sign of royalty and authority, which takes the form of a spiral; it appears as a coil of jute twine attached to the surface of earthy paintings such as The Sand Talisman. The Ghanaian artist also uses traditional fabrics embedded with Adinkra symbols in Mmim Boba, turning ceremonial textile into sculpture. But Poku isn鈥檛 simply borrowing symbols invested with spirituality; she also builds dense, sculptural paintings such as Asaase Yaa (Mother Earth) using contemporary materials to convey the cosmic significance of her themes. Poku appeals to a higher realm by using the Adinkra of her people and by adapting strategies from artists such as Jay DeFeo and Robert Rauschenberg.

While the artists in 鈥淭ransit鈥� embody cosmopolitan ideals, some of their works hit closer to home. Connor Gagne鈥檚 Pinhole Chests looks to the past for inspiration: For this spatial project, the artist created four vignettes: dollhouse sculptures of modest rooms. He then projects these images using a camera obscura. The inverted image suggests a dream logic: Where a viewer might want to examine the miniature sculpture for its impressive detailing, instead the inverted image acts as a barrier, forcing the viewer to see it as a vision instead. It鈥檚 a sculpture that strives to be a mirage. Gagne鈥檚 project reaches for the cinematic magic of Gregory Crewdson but also inhabits the rustic lyricism of Andrew Wyeth.

Many of the artworks in 鈥淭ransit鈥� suggest some kind of interplay between artist and viewer. But at times the transformation is wholly interior. Julia Cheng Zhang鈥檚 work traces her personal trajectory: A scientist trained in China, she left a career in graphics illustrating space for NASA in order to pursue art. Zhang鈥檚 ceramics reveal how the artist reconciles these different ways of discovering and representing the world: In works such as M枚bius Strip Variation, she examines concepts of order and entropy as they manifest in natural symmetry. Her process couples science with craft to explore the concept of beauty and her role as its observer.

Andr茅s Izquierdo takes a tale of transit as the root of allegory. His work references a dark story from his native Colombia: In the 1980s, the drug lord Pablo Escobar imported four hippopotamuses for a private menagerie that he kept at his estate, Hacienda Napoles, east of Medell铆n. After Escobar鈥檚 death, the hippos spread in the wild, their population unchecked for years. Izquierdo renders these so-called cocaine hippos as avatars for the destruction of the drug trade and the corrosive impact of corruption. In works such as Hippos and Coke I, Izquierdo paints these hippos with an aggressive, almost gestural approach to the canvas 鈥� his disdain an act of resistance.

Some of the works take the notion of transit literally; for others it鈥檚 a conceptual point of departure. Different acts of negotiation between artist and subject as well as artwork and viewer show the many paths to change. 鈥淭ransit鈥� reveals both the promise of possibility and the perils of standing still.