may 11 - june 3, 2007


tendency to pile
katy fischer, jin lee,
melissa oresky

with
three kinds of mountain
a reading by laurie palmer
saturday, may 12th, 1pm


opening reception
friday, may 11th
6-10 pm


gallery hours
saturday and sunday
12-5 pm or by appt


pile is a structure that is at once a sign of order and excess. It is ad-hoc. A pile can be a holding place, a methodical gathering, an arrangement, or a way to consolidate what is left over, unwanted, or discarded. Piles can be organized, like proto-architecture, or riotous, as if deposited by whirlwind. An inclination to make or document piles as markers of human presence is something the three artists in this show have observed in each other’s work. This tendency is shared among other artists and people who make such structures in the world as storage, debris, and markers of human presence.
 

In Tendency to Pile Jin Lee will show Small Mountains, a series of photographs of mounds of salt and dirt found in construction and storage sites.  She states: “ I am interested in how these materials are shaped by human use as well as elements of weather and time.  The project also explores ambiguity of scale in photographs, as well as a sense of accelerated geological time in the miniature mountain forms.”  Katy Fischer will include several paintings inspired by burial mounds, compost heaps, and burning piles of leaves. In these contexts, piles represent gathered potential energy and sites of powerful forces of transformation at work.  Melissa Oresky will show works on paper titled Private Landfills. These drawing/collages are hill or pile-like constructions made of materials gathered in the studio from leftover fragments of images, various papers, and paint used to make previous work.  The debris built into these works can be considered as cognitive, physical, and pictorial matter. In recombining these remains into landscapes or land”fills”, they are reinvigorated and pressured to generate new structures, inventions, and ideas.