Grey Matter Exhibition 2019
Insitu/Fabienne LeClerc Paris FR
I was acutely aware of the configuration of my doctor’s office. The couch appeared overly long, next to a small desk, a version of the ubiquitous chair/couch configuration of the consulting room. Though I didn’t recline, my interest in furniture and space was sometimes a jumping-off point that enabled me to segue into another subject, as I translated the themes into objects and the objects into metaphoric configurations. This back and forth was exaggerated by the distortion of the mirror’s reflection which often confused one’s sense of place.
Over time the blurring of boundaries became a lens through which I measured my observations. I thought about stillness, non-action and looking; I thought about the time it takes to see difference, what makes an idea change, what is considered exotic, and the power of the spectacle; I thought about how natural beauty was often sad in contrast to the intricacies of comparative beauty; and I thought about the parameters of effect, the inaccuracies of translation, and the subjectivity of perception.
In Grey Matter the architecture of the gallery functions as the armature for this investigation, the wall being the fulcrum dividing two separate fictions. On one side, the peacock is the protagonist in a narrative of seduction and futility in his last days of mating season. Though filmed in midsummer, he is surrounded by a barren landscape, a premeditation of a trauma to come. On the other, is a panorama of the southwest Desert, it necessitates a slow-down in time to notice the barely noticeable. Both spaces position us, the viewer, in a landscape removed from the outside; both landscapes re-frame us, the viewer, alone as witnesses to the vulnerability of this planet.
