FRACTURED MEMORY
Kevin John Doherty
Reid Oshan
Bobby Smith
Fractured Memory explores the nature of the object and how process and materiality impact the familiarity. Doherty, Oshan and Smith disrupt our experience and imbue in commonplace objects disparate memories. The objects possess a nostalgic breathe while also taking on new, deep emotional qualities.
Kevin John Doherty
Kevin John Doherty overlays personal and collective memories and experiences in a reflection on greater societal criticisms. Working primarily in resin, Doherty utilizes the transparency of the medium to preserve, magnify, and encase objects and materials. In an earlier series of resin cast NES and Gameboy cartridges, he creates handheld tableaux imbedded with relics such as dried flowers, photographs, text and found objects. In his newer works, resin orbs are cast and filled with blistered cellophane crystals. The beautiful iridescent refractions distract from the toxicity of the materials and process. Chicken wire constrains the cellophane and extends outward, with sharp arms protruding in every direction their peaks capped with a false roses.
Reid Oshan
Reid Oshan brings a physicality to memory. Of the 4 works featured in Fractured Memory, two sculptures, reminiscent of old photographs sit petrified, their convexity peeling into the viewers space. The central imagery, although indecipherable, evokes pastoral scenes. Each valley and ridge in the paper clay further emphasis the tangibility Oshan creates of a distant memory. Perched on a pedestal is a third sculpture by Oshan. Suspended from a metal appendage, a form, like a prehistoric flower is tightly wrapped. The mummification of the flower preserves its ephemeral essence while limiting the associative qualities the viewer can bring to the object.
Bobby Smith
Bobby Smith’s cluster of anthropomorphized homes hang like drawings cut from a notebook. These three buildings with crude lines, frantic squiggled shingles and skewed perspective confront the psychology of home. Each reveals an emotional state plastered on the facade alluding to internal and external conflicts. The carpet armature of each home furthering this interplay. The eyes on the homes, in their voidness, portray an unsettling voyeuristic experience.
