Past Exhibition
Glass Art
Peg's Gallery
September 27, 2013 — October 11, 2013
About the Artist
Lisa Demagall
I have been obstinately wrestling with objects and their ghosts. I long for domestic objects and their evocative sense of familiarity, projecting myself upon them and imparting them with emotions. I have kept close to me a table that I never desired, simply because it was my grandmothers. I have felt empathetic towards a dilapidated and three-legged dresser (as if it might be conscious of it’s own disability). I am keenly aware of the ways in which I utilize and interact with these objects daily, the ways in which they are worn thin with time and use.
I am intrinsically drawn to objects that collaborate with the body, that I encounter and employ daily. Objects that are embedded deeply within you, that our bodies intimately know and understand. I find this in domestic items: rug, chair, table, spoon. They cradle our bodies, we put them in our mouths, they harbor our rituals, routines, and daily incessant needs. I sympathize with keepsakes and commodities that have become marginalized over time, showing their wear and tear, having lost their mix and match, and become cast aside like secondhand goods. My work is intended as both literal and symbolic, but how do I make these objects act as metaphors for our own vulnerable and fragile nature and the certainty of our own decay?
I am interested in the intersection that can occur between objects and their human counterparts. These silent and mutable objects become laced with the complications that life mercilessly brings. The dust lace drawings came about as I struggled to realize a sculpture that is aware of its own vulnerability, aware of its own impending demise. I do not believe that just because something is fragile by nature, that it is meant to be abused, but once the dust drawings are in the world they are on their own. I hope that by utilizing dust as a medium I am able to give the viewer a physical encounter with the work that can provoke an immediate understanding of its vulnerable and fragile nature.