Transforming Matter
The Suyama Space in Seattle, Washington, is many different things on any given day: an in-between space, a frontier space, a no-man's land, a portal complete with the traces of time, an etherial atmospheric space, an allegorical forest, or even a fractured virtual reality.
Located in the Belltown district of Seattle the building was originally a livery stable, then, for several decades, an auto repair shop. In 1995, it was purchased by George Suyama who redesigned it to house Suyama Peterson Debuchi Architecture studio in the back and two retail spaces in the front. Sandwiched between the high end retail world and a speculative architecture studio, the Suyama Space is a niche expanse of pure potential - activated through site specific arts programming.
Founding curator Beth Sellars partnered with George Suyama to create exhibitions in the space. It soon became apparent that for artwork to truly thrive at Suyama, it was necessary for it to become more relational to the space. At Suyama, there are strong architectural elements at play: bright sky lights, an open-beam ceiling, and a topsy-turvy wood plank floor. In light of this, the programming encourages artists to act as active collaborators with the physical space, integrating it into their installation. The current exhibition of Elizabeth Higgens O'Connor continues in this vein.
In 2014 O'Connor was invited to visit, interact with and make work at the Suyama space. In January of 2015 the artist opened her exhibition Heart in Throat, Head in Hands; Tongue in Knots, Heart on Sleeve.
O'Connor is a sculptor working predominantly with salvaged and thrift-store materials. Stripping down couches to their bare frames, turning found patterned fabric into resined collage blocks, and using painted cardboard fragments as a scaled epidermis; these are some examples of the inventive ways in which O'Connor retrofits worn, discarded or out-of-fashion domestic items. Her play with materials resulted in the creation of eight animal-like entities. Each character acts as an apparition whose physical manifestation conjures cultural, historical, philosophical references.
One figure closely resembles Falkor the Luckdragon from the Neverending Story, whilst another collapsed character, with its peg-legs and donkey-like face, conjures Pinocchio. Also part of the parade: a floppy bunny with couch pillows for ears, a sly fox whose stance suggests he is a puppet attached to invisible strings, a doily and bobble-faced cow, and a bewitching coyote with explosive fur made from hundreds of flowers.
Each of the colourful fabrics, patterns and crocheted items used by the artist houses its own identity via a collective unconscious proxy. They are linked to a web that travels time through multiple historical eras. This web further extends into personal histories, connecting elements and items to individual and familial associations. On inspection of the characters, one is easily reminded of the crocheted table cloth made by their grandmother, or the sheets that were on the beds at their aunt and uncle's place. The unfamiliar rendered familiar and vice-versa.
The work is assembled in such a matter that the inner structures are exposed and celebrated as opposed to seamlessly hidden. Characters are constructed and connected with drywall screws, staples, and bound sections of string. Wooden couch frames seem to prop up each character. In the case of the coyote, they seem to violently impale him. Inner guts on display, skin shredded and organs at the ready. The work is quite visceral, yet, somehow, O'Connor subverts these messy elements converting them into a scene that is incredibly charming and endearing.
Through her use of pastel colours, character posturing, and the intricate and detailed facial rendering of each entity transformation is present. The uncanny is supplanted by the magical, the outdated becomes repurposed and sentiments of helter-skelter shift over into the realm of higgledy-piggledy. The push and pull between value and detritus is the core of what she is presenting, and the tension in-between these states is championed in this exhibition. O'Connor has stated that she is interested in the under-noticed yet overwhelming and also the marginal yet monumental. These ideas shine through in the work by way of her choice of materials and the pre-loaded concepts that they carry.
O'Connor could be seen as a bricoleur, a concept that anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss explored in his book Savage Mind. A bricoleur works within a set of parameters, as does O'Connor with her salvaged ephemera. Strauss once remarked that a bricoleur “may not ever complete his/her purpose but s/he always puts something of herself/himself into it.” This rings true with O'Connor, she highlighted in her artist statement that she is interested in making struggle, vulnerability and weakness visible along with resourcefulness and resilience. Each character with their respective wooden supports, crutches and netting demonstrate the resilience whilst fallen characters like the donkey and the piles of detritus within the room emphasis elements of struggle and decay. Each visitor also, in-turn, becomes a bricoleur mending and hatching ideas on what the work means to them.
O'Connor's art and the Suyama Space play well together. Similar to the artist's work, the Suyama Space itself is also not without it's own set of pre-loaded architectural and historical fragments. The scene that has been set by the artist is brilliantly situated in this context. The characters feel not as though they have been placed in the space, but almost as though the space has created them. This feels like their home, their point of origin. The interplay between site and installation is highly successful in this exhibition iteration.
The title of the exhibition provides a balanced emphasis on gestures, emotions and puns. Though the title doesn't suggest a direct overarching narrative, the abstracted title highlights the idea that multiple narratives are present, an important factor of the installation as a whole, but also with regards to each individual piece in the show being an amalgamation of many things. Each short phrase of the title emphasises different elements within the installation. Heart in Throat captures the struggle and anxiety found in the work, Head in Hands emphasises the gestures of the quirky characters playing out their narratives. Tongue in Knots and Heart on Sleeve speak to the visual, these puns on communication and emotion support the artist's exploration of memory, life, love, dreams and death. The title's importance is only revealed after spending time in this unique space.
Heart in Throat, Head in Hands; Tongue in Knots, Heart on Sleeve is a grand proposition of activation. Calling all Bricoleurs and storey tellers! Travel through time and unravel this complex fable of memory.
Heart in Throat, Head in Hands; Tongue in Knots, Heart on Sleeve
Elizabeth Higgins O'Connor
An exhibition review by Sunshine Frère
January 19 – April 25
Suyama Space
Additional information:
http://www.elisabethhigginsoconnor.net/
http://www.suyamaspace.org/
We accept that every person has many biographies... each of which selects some aspect of the live history and discards others. Biographies of things cannot but be similarly partial. - Igor Kopytoff, The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process
No Objects, spaces, or bodies are sacred in themselves; any component can be interfaced with any other if the proper standard, the proper code, can be constructed for processing signals in a common language... The privileged pathology affecting all kinds of components in this universe is stress – communications breakdown... The cyborg is a kind of disassembled and re-assembled, postmodern collective and personal self. - Donna J. Haraway, The Cyborg Manifesto
