Bradley Borthwick: Objects of Empire Gallery Guide, Burlington City Arts

G ALL E RY GU IDE

Objects of Empire, BCA Center installation, 2021

Bradley Borthwick creates contemplative, multimedia art installations that combine sculpture with elements of performance, film, or sound. Grounded in historical research, Borthwick interrogates the remnants of past cultures by re-creating vernacular motifs and ancient forms in a variety of media ranging from marble and limestone, to wood or beeswax.

In Objects of Empire, Borthwick thoughtfully ponders the shared cycles of civilization by investigating two seemingly incongruent, manufactured objects – an 18th century Vermont headstone known as the Pratt tablet and an ancient, Romanera amphora. Researching the historic, economic, and artistic origins of these two ubiquitous objects, Borthwick presents each form as a powerful signifier of memory, place, and cultural connection.

Borthwick laboriously hand-carved reproductions of the Pratt tablet and Roman amphora in Vermont Olympia white marble. In his installation, the artist rests his duplicate tablet across a partially carved Africana-style amphora (its horizontal orientation suggesting the carved reliefs of Roman-era sarcophagi lids). Stacked against the gallery’s wall are multiple, cast-beeswax replicas of Borthwick’s tablet reproduction—mimicking how historic headstones may have been stacked and stored in a churchyard. Uniting the two groupings are a series of Atlantic White Cedar blocks supporting the sculpture. Carefully, Borthwick considers each material – whether marble, cedar, or beeswax—for its inherent qualities and its significance as a resource that is finite.

Permeating the gallery, a rhythmic soundscape composed by musician S.J. Kardash (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada), and created specifically for Objects of Empire, conveys notions of industrial production and impermanence with its melodic notes of sadness that build to hopeful refrains.

For Objects of Empire, Borthwick researched Vermont’s Dorset marble quarry, where he discovered the Pratt tablet —a marble headstone carved in memory of a Mr. John Pratt (who was buried in Old Bennington, Vermont). According to the Vermont Marble Company’s publication The Memory Stone 1768-1926, the Pratt tablet is one of the earliest works in Vermont marble to be placed in a cemetery— signifying the dramatic rise and fall of Vermont’s marble industry that would ensue over the next two centuries. In his installation, Borthwick has meticulously replicated the Pratt tablet’s simple design in marble—including its inscription and carved, winged cherub and stylized vines along the border.

Remarkably, he has captured the original tablet’s nicks, abrasions, and wear; intentionally leaving the lower section of the tablet’s surface blank where the monument would have been buried in the ground.

Borthwick has practiced and studied traditional marble carving techniques for decades. During periods of study in Italian ateliers, he would explore and research the archeological sites of ancient Italy. Of special interest to Borthwick were ancient Roman storehouses, known as horrea, with their piles of ceramic amphorae. At one time, these everyday vessels transported wine, tree nuts, grains, or olives throughout the ancient world. In contrast to his precise

reproduction of the tablet, Borthwick’s replica of the amphora retains the base of its marble block. Emerging from the cut stone, the elegant vessel appears suspended between material truth and illusion.

Separated by time, location, and culture, these objects of past empires—tablet and amphora—become poignant symbols of the ascension and demise of their respective realms.

— Heather Ferrell, Curator and Director of Exhibitions

BRADLEY BORTHWICK Objects of Empire, 2021 multimedia installation with soundscape (Vermont Olympia white marble, Atlantic white cedar, and beeswax) soundscape composed by S.J. Kardash, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada Courtesy of the Artist

BRADLEY BORTHWICK (b. 1973, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) creates sculptural and installation-based works that examine the remnants of material culture across global economies and histories. His work has been featured in solo shows at the Arkansas Contemporary Sculpture Society, Fayetteville, AR; Hinterland Gallery, Denver, CO; and Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. He has participated in group exhibitions at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA; the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME; and the Parco dell’Arte, Cerrina Monferrato, Italy. In 2018, he completed a residency aboard the Antigua, on which he sailed throughout the High Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard, Norway. He currently resides in the Midcoast region of Maine, and serves as an Associate Professor of Art at Colby College.

RELATED PROGRAMMING

Virtual Artist Talk Bradley Borthwick: Objects of Empire

Thursday, November 4, 2pm

BCA presents an interactive, online program with Maine sculptor Bradley Borthwick who discusses his sculptural installation, Objects of Empire. The artist talks about his research-based practice and his current project which examines the cultural significance of manufactured objects in telling larger stories of the rise and fall of economies.

Register online at: burlingtoncityarts.org

BCA Exhibitions are funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and Vermont Arts Council.

Hospitality sponsor, Lake Champlain Chocolates.

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