In Regards To Nostalgia (2021)
Curated by Sso-Rha Kang & exhibited at the Art Academy of Cincinnati from October 29-November 29.
In Regards to Nostalgia is a multimedia exhibition comprised of sculpture, painting, and photographic installations that examine how the past manifests in the present and how lived realities collide with our reimagining of what once was.
Mark Albain examines John Cage’s propagated night-blooming cereus plant as he captures its elusive bloom through photographs. Jesse Ly utilizes film-based photographic techniques to examine grief, love, and melancholia through site-specific installations and Aubrey Theobald’s intimate material study of everyday objects highlight location, empathy, and mourning practices through sculpture and painting.
Without This Wind, I Would Be Invisible (2021)
Portland Cement, resin, varnish, preserved Tennessee spring clover, creeper vine, a love letter, risograph Roswell Amphora print, varied flora, plinth built by Mark Albain
8” x 11” x 30”, 7.5” x 10” x 35” , & 7.5” x 10”
Without These Winds I Would Be Invisible (2021) speaks toward the corners of our memory, of our person, that we protect from others and from ourselves. This series of three began as a memorial site, a place to rest, and an object to pay homage to the deaths my family did not get a funeral for, to create the memorium bench I should have made for my late and loved Rita & Gary Gay.
Another Glimmering Link
Portland cement, plaster, powder tint, dried yarrow, porcelain fern leaves, textured spray paint
Ongoing edition of 86 paving bricks, cast every morning for 43 days
Considering memory as a vessel to cast grief into, Another Glimmering Link (2021) presents the nuances, cracks, & breakage of the structural integrity of a memory through a collection of unidentifiable interlocking paving bricks. As I grasp at loosely identical interactions of the same memory, I am reminded that we cannot fill it’s gap, nor match the original format - instead, we must ourselves grow to fit the new shape.
Soft Power: Mortuary Materials (2021)
House paint & acrylic on homemade stretcher bars, 48” x 60”
Objects: Studio cockroach(s), traffic cones, small mortuary statue, vessel, funerary candelabra, stag-horn fern, preserved salted lemons, fresh lemons, cinder blocks, bull thistle, window with candle, my grandmothers urn, construction bricks tied up on a truck bed, eucalyptus for healing
