IN THE GALLERY: Strata

Marian Drew

3 - 21 Mar 2020

For me, the genres of still life and landscape are entwined. Through compressing model forms of landscape into the humanized space of the still life, I posit a relationship between microcosmic and macrocosmic scales.

The sculptural capacity of a photograph reveals its performative nature as both image and object. In this Euclidean space, tables become landscapes and surreal interventions. Ripping and rephotographing large prints ties these works to previous iterations of my practice, always concerned with the overlaps and indistinctions of traditional genres. I consider this process a kind of sculptural collage. The tearing of the photograph, both physically and from its quadrilateral origins and implied narratives, reinforces its material nature. It becomes a contemporary artefact, at once an echo and antithesis of screen based images.

With a firm nod to Cezanne’s interiorization of landscape and the compressions of geometry in Cubism and Surrealism, I am interested in conceptual and spatial suggestions that relate specifically to the 21st century.

– Marian Drew

documentation: Janelle Low