Gallery Guide: How to Move Between Worlds

How to Move Between Worlds embraces the journey between fantasy and reality, paradise and wish-fulfillment as depicted in geology, folk-tales and ancient cosmologies. Using an array of materials such as sugar, glitter, crystals, artificial flora and craft materials, Pip & Pop (Perth, Australia) playfully transform everyday materials into an excessive imaginary world, while Ashley Eliza Williams (North Adams, Massachusetts) manipulates oil painting into a curious exploration of the patterns and biological systems that organize an oftentimes surreal natural world.

The paintings in the central gallery are part of Ashley Eliza Williams’

Anthropocene Project. Williams’ geologic paintings take the form and presence of mysticism in nature. Her vibrant paintings are based on hundreds of photographs she took of limestone formations in Germany and China. The unnaturally floating ecological specimens reference a future geology: extractions from the Anthropocene, the current geological age, the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. These specimens reveal the effects of human industry, agriculture, and war. The scars of a world, only existing in future memory and geological scars, are represented by Williams through color: acidic oranges, plastic blues, chemical greens, and radioactive violets. Despite the darkness at the origin of these colors, they lull you in to their unnatural universe that simultaneously exist within and without the rules of the known natural world.

Pip & Pop’s color-saturated dreamscapes (front gallery and upstairs) draw inspiration from narratives of unattainable and illusory lands, utopian and hidden paradises. The platforms represent a landscape of multi-leveled worlds, both the nine worlds of Norse mythology (important to the history of Breckenridge) which the gods traveled between via rainbows, as well as video games where characters jump from one level to the next.

The sugar in the complex worlds atop the platforms sparkle like a precious stone, but also activate the viewers’ taste buds to experience sweetness.

Sugar holds the empty promise that Pip & Pop identify with the fantasy lands which serve as inspiration – it is sweet and appealing but there is nothing lasting or nutritious. (The cheap colorful craft materials tell a similar lie of excess and extravagance until closer inspection reveals their falsehood.) The Dutch Luilekkerland and the French Land of Cockaigne, both inspiration for the artist, are worlds created entirely of food, serving both as aspirational fantasy and cautionary tales of gluttony.

In addition to consideration of the Norse history of Breckenridge, Pip & Pop also took inspiration from the Westward Expansion and gold-mining history of our community. Gold pieces are hidden throughout the glittering exhibition. As people have done since the beginning of time, settlers traveled to the Rocky Mountains in search of a magical land depicted in paintings by Alfred Bierstadt or in hopes of finding mountains filled with gold that would make them rich. Much like the lands of folk-tales, the reality of the Rocky Mountains was a mix of magical and terrible. Settlers found unspeakable beauty but harsh and punishing living conditions.

Today, Breckenridge, and many ski communities, finds itself in a contemporary version of duplicitous paradise. It is an enchanting land of endless natural wonders with a year-round population that faces high cost of living, long winters, and crowded city centers. The truth of this mountain community is not a superficial postcard representation but a layered existence, it is both a mountain nirvana and a real modern settlement.

Weaving together multiple historical, scientific, and cultural references,

How to Move Between Worlds is, at its root, an optimistic selection of works.

Pip & Pop and Ashley Eliza Williams embrace mystery, abundance and good fortune that manifests through both fantasy worlds and reality. Both artists bring an abundance of color and detail for enjoyment, while delicately pushing us all over the cliff of pleasure to a valley of overwhelming excess.

DOWNSTAIRS Front Gallery

PIP&POP HOW TO MOVE BETWEEN WORLDS, 2019 Candy, sugar, glitter, polyurethane foam, modeling clay, pompoms, sequins, beads, vinyl, crystals, and artificial flowers

ASHLEY ELIZA WILLIAMS SUBMERGE, 2018 30” x 24” Oil on canvas

Central gallery (left to right)

ASHLEY ELIZA WILLIAMS RESONANT, 2018 40” x 30” Oil on canvas

ASHLEY ELIZA WILLIAMS STATE OF BEING, 2018 24” x 24” Oil on canvas

ASHLEY ELIZA WILLIAMS REMOTE SENSING, 2018 30” x 30” Oil on canvas

ASHLEY ELIZA WILLIAMS FINITE OBJECT, 2018 24” x 24” Oil on canvas

ASHLEY ELIZA WILLIAMS BIOLITH, 2018 24” x 18” Oil on canvas

UPSTAIRS PIP&POP HOW TO MOVE BETWEEN WORLDS, 2019 Candy, sugar, glitter, polyurethane foam, modeling clay, pompoms, sequins, beads, vinyl, crystals, and artificial flowers

PIP & POP Australian artist Tanya Schultz works as Pip & Pop to create immersive installations and artworks from an eclectic range of materials including sugar, glitter, candy, plastic flowers, everyday craft materials and all sorts of objects she finds on her travels. Her practice embodies both independent and collaborative processes across varying disciplines including installation, painting, wall-works and sculpture. Often ephemeral, her meticulously constructed and highly detailed works embrace notions of abundance, utopian dreams and fleeting pleasure. She is fascinated with ideas of paradise and wish-fulfillment described in folk tales, mythologies and cinema.

Tanya has exhibited her work in Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, Germany, Netherlands, Mexico, the UAE and the UK. pipandpop.com.au

ASHLEY ELIZA WILLIAMS Ashley Eliza Williams shows her work nationally and internationally. In 2016-2017 she will be attending artist residencies in the United States, Germany, Thailand, and China. She has taught painting and drawing at The University of Colorado and Colorado State University. Ashley is represented by Goodwin Fine Art in Denver, Colorado. aerofauna.com