Silent Worlds

ART GYM GALLERY, AURORA, CO | AUG 2021

This installation invites viewers into a formal gallery space turned domestic environment, where signs of inhabitation are felt and life seems present, flourishing in its solitude.

Within this environment, evidence of human life (or perhaps now the lack thereof) is seen as you wander the layout: a stack of unfinished projects piled in the corner, overgrown plants that beg to be tended to from the shelf, a light that was left on. Half completed research is left open and the radio from the study seems to leak into every room slightly. A stack of books sits awry on the floor, ready to be dug into, marked up, researched more.

There is a relationship between the objects within the space; much like a room of plants, you can tell the cabinets have had time to converse with one another. The lamp that provided light to read by now casts a motherly warmth for a new species while giving a nurturing sun-like radiance for growth at its source as well. Small plants form together in strings as they swirl around a bird, trapped in time, a relic of a distant place, recreated by a local artisan, or perhaps not.

While human activity appears to be at rest, the plants continue to flourish, creating their own type of photosynthesis, putting out refraction rather than oxygen, producing something of wonder from something we take for granted each day: light.

This work, composed of artist-made sculptures and found object assemblage, with accompanying sound from artist and composer Nathan Hall, creates a still place that is ever-changing, moving slowly before your eyes, often magnificent, though perhaps sometimes at rest.