Artists: Raphael Arar, Elizabeth Arzani, Heather Lee Birdsong, Brittney Connelly, Epiphany Couch, Renee Couture, Carolyn Hazel Drake, Michael Espinoza, Quinha Faria, Marcelo Fontana, Pamela Hadley, Chris Lael Larson, Matthew Bennett Laurents, Maria Lux, Kyle Adam Kalev Peets, Allan Pichardo, Kim Smith Claudel, Matt Williams, Rachael Zur
Installation View of Composition/ Decomposition at SOIL Gallery, photography by Rafael Soldi
Through decomposition, soil is made fertile for seeds to take root. What should we construct from what needs to be deconstructed—systems, ideologies, images, a line, a composition, a theory? What should or could grow in its place? In the decay of dated systems and ideas for art, culture, politics, artists can plant new seeds and imagine new ecosystems.
This group exhibition, Composition / Decomposition features 19 members from the artist collective, Carnation Contemporary (Portland, OR), uprooting and inserting disparate forms of entangled histories, questions, fears, grief, and longing embedded in seen and unseen structures. Themes of archetypal life cycles, ephemerality, consumption, ritual, generational knowledge, motherhood, and intimacy are shown side by side as simultaneously expansive and oddly specific. From projected landscapes on a desert-sun-bleached can to dusty poems encased in a block of soap to a CRT television with robotic news mining social media, reclaimed and constructed materials present themselves in various states of composure and disarray. Collectively, the work in this show serves as an invitation for SOIL members, asking them to respond, in turn, at Carnation's gallery in November 2024. These exchanges between artist collectives are made possible by a RACC Art3C grant.
Composition / Decomposition digs into the fertile soil of "entangled histories, questions, fears, grief, and longing" like so much mycelium.
Carnation Contemporary was founded in 2018 by a collective of Portland-based artists who champion critical and contemporary artwork. Carnation supports emerging and mid-career artists from the Pacific Northwest.