In.Visible Gallery Guide

Aisha Harrison

Curated by Kirsten Stingle

SEPTEMBER 30 - DECEMBER 30, 2023 THOMPSON GALLERY

GALLERY GUIDE

In.Visible

Statement from the Curator Kirsten Stingle

Stories are one of the most powerful ways humans teach, explain, organize, and motivate.

Throughout history, societal structures and beliefs can all be distilled into stories. Their power does not lie in their veracity necessarily, but in the relevancy in meeting dominant communal needs.

From this point of view, it is revealed how tightly narratives are woven into who we are and what we do. Like the air we breathe, they intrinsically surround us. They are In.Visible.

Thus, stories may be the exact tool needed to address the current issues we face on a global, societal and individual level. What if all narratives, archetypes, and themes could be re-invisioned into stories that might guide Modernity’s next steps? “In.Visible” is a raucous chorus of 22 artists’ voices speaking for a world where we are connected to each other and to the ecosystem of which we are a part.

Artists & Collaborators Carrie Anne Bade Donna Bates Andrea K. Connell Ilona Cutts Natasha Dikareva TJ Erdahl Deborah Grayson Amy Gross

Aisha Harrison Richard W. James Christine Kosiba Michelle Laxalt Asia Mathis Mac Star McCusker Shannon Moore Crystal Morey

Kyungmin Park Hannah Pierce Beau Raymond David Robinson Kirsten Stingle Roxanne Swentzell

The Bascom: A Center for the Visual Arts The Bascom creates visual art experiences that inspire and empower individuals and communities through seeing, thinking, and doing. For more than 30 years, we’ve served as a vital cultural resource for Western North Carolina, and we continue to build on that legacy through our work and advocacy for the arts.

Carrie Anne Bade Allegory of Good Government, 2023 oil on linen 36” x 48” It is said that when the world dies, Lord Vishnu will transform himself into a turtle, and through his navel, a lotus will grow, thus giving birth to the new world. In the foreground, a fiery apocalypsethe Earth is dying in flames, and at the center of ruin is a glowing orb that implies that as the planet dies -its soul is eternal. And why not? In our many cosmologies, if our body dies, do we not believe that we will be born again, resurrected elsewhere into a new form? Like the phoenix igniting into flame, the renewed Earth is a great new baby blue orb. The world reincarnated! From this central pillar, an “axis mundi,” two scales perform the weighing of the heart from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The heart is measured against the feather of Maat, which embodies truth. Around these scales are Christian, Hindu, Greco-Roman, and Egyptian gods, with the whole formation embodying the Islamic Atman, the spiritual life principle of the universe inherent in the individual’s authentic self.

For what is good government? Is it an internal state that steers our mores and morals? While our inner world is changeable and regenerative, and we must transform ourselves to change collectively.

If we do not awaken from our self-centeredness, our planet, as we know it, will perish by fire. It is time to be better stewards of our world.

Donna Bates Life NOT as we Know It, 2023 oil and mixed media on AlumaLite 32” x 48” Why do our scientists and leaders always want to limit our imagination by looking for “life as we know it”? Our minds should be open to imagining other environments, alternate horizons, and history. What if all our earthly myths and prophets were visitors from other worlds? What are human beings’ prospects for life beyond Earth and on it? These are the questions I like to ask. Maybe it’s life NOT as we know it.

Andrea K. Connell Hug, 2022 ceramic, underglaze 36” x 26” x 15” In the first month of the stay-at-home order, I was teaching online and battling with my own motivation in the studio. When my students and I were both struggling together, I proposed doing a project along with them.

The prompt for the project was to select an object from your space, and remake it in some way. I immediately gravitated towards a ceramic Tree of Life I inherited from a family friend. Throughout the making of this piece, I reflected on the meaning of the tree of life. It is a symbol that is connected to most cultures, and often symbolic of family, ancestors, and a bridge between birth, life, and death. It is also a symbol of resilience, growth, and interconnectedness. At the beginning of the pandemic and throughout, I felt very connected to this symbol. In a time of tremendous global pain and uncertainty, I found the tree of life to represent great certainty. The work that came out of it became my metaphorical hug, and in a time when our physical connection was cut off, I actually found myself feeling more connected than ever.

Ilona Cutts Vis Divina in nobis est (Divine power is in us), 2023 oil on canvas 50” x 40” There is a Divine power in us, like there is a Divine power in all that surrounds us in the form of all living beings and also everything that is invisible to the human eye. We can’t necessarily “see it”, but we can feel it, we know it’s there. When we allow ourselves to tap into the unseen, we can access knowledge and we can be transformed and receive information from supernatural powers. When I awaken in the morning, I often hear words pop up in my head, sometimes they are foreign words that I cannot comprehend or words that I feel I have no relation to. In occasion I have to look up the meaning of those words and ask myself; is there any correlation between these words and my current life? I understand this as a communication from another dimension, where angels or spirits are trying to communicate with us. “Vis Divina in nobis est” and the image of a deer came to my mind’s eye. In Insular Celtic mythology, deer are associated with a spiritual figure and spirits or deities are known to take the form of deer. They symbolize a connection to the supernatural, the “Otherworld and are on the quest for bringing forth messages. I’m drawn to the “unknown” side of life and all its mysteries. I find that if we pause for a moment from our busy lives and listen and observe, we can hear things we don’t normally hear, words and images appear and stories begin to form. We too can be transformed, we can become like a deer and find Divine power is in us.

Natasha Dikareva Searching for Answers, 2023 stoneware, stains, glazes 30” x 12” x 10” Once, in a time of great turmoil and conflict, there existed a mystical land known as Elysium.

The people of Elysium were devout followers of a powerful deity, a god who had guided them through countless trials and tribulations. But as war consumed their once peaceful land, their faith began to waver, and the myth of their god losing sight of them took hold.

“Searching for Answers” tells a compelling story of loss, faith, and the search for divine guidance amid the chaos of war. The sculpture depicts the bust of a woman, her countenance etched with profound sadness. Tears stream down her cheeks, embodying the collective grief and anguish experienced by a war-torn society. Her eyes gaze upward, desperately seeking answers from the heavens above, as if questioning the whereabouts of their guiding deity. Emerging from waves, symbolic of the tumultuous and destructive forces of war, she stands as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity. Her hairdo, reminiscent of a Ukrainian orthodox church, represents the once steadfast faith that had been punctured by the ravages of war. It bore visible holes, wounds inflicted upon their beliefs, which left them yearning for divine intervention and the restoration of their shattered faith. Atop the woman’s head rests a dome, a symbol of the spiritual realm that had provided solace and guidance in times of peace. Yet, this dome was not unscathed. Delicate punctures adorned its surface, serving as a visual representation of the myth that had taken hold within the hearts of the people. It reflected their doubts and the shattered illusions of a god seemingly distant or absent during their darkest hours.

This sculpture captures the essence of a contemporary myth, born from the experiences of a people struggling through war. “Searching for Answers” is a symbol of resilience, an embodiment of the universal human desire for meaning and connection. It reminds humanity of the enduring power of faith and the quest for answers in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges.

TJ Erdahl Meat Monger, 2023 cramics, wood table, found objects 58” x 24” x 36” Like most in the region of my midwestern hometown, I was raised to feel that meat was the significant source of protein in my diet. We ate a lot of meat. Growing up in Iowa in the 1980s, I was no stranger to cattle farms, but I had no idea how the meat from the grocery store was processed. I never thought about it. I am kinda embarrassed by this! As I grew “wiser” I’ve since embraced and practiced veganism and vegetarianism at different points in my life. I try my best to not eat meat as a main source of protein in my diet anymore but truthfully I still eat it at times, but with a more sustainable approach. I think about cultures around the world and how much they differ from my upbringing and I know that Americans aren’t the only ones that love beef. But we are at the top of the list, and our grocery stores are buying more and more from, of all places, the Amazon rainforest. Greed, the cattle industry in Brazil, and Americans who are statistically craving more and more meat, are collectively digging a deeper grave or technically spreading a thicker layer of shit over our planet. The dark side of western civilization is ripe with its bad habits that seem to continue to multiply. About 100 million pounds of beef was imported to the U.S. from the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest cattle ranchers in January of 2022 alone, and that was a 500% increase from January of 2021. The deforestation from cattle ranching is destroying both the biodiversity that is crucial to our survival, and working towards creating a catastrophic level of global warming in the process. That has of now can not be stopped by simply reducing our emissions from vehicles.

As I work through the depressing onslaught of information that I intake about the dark side of the cattle industry, I often think about how there could be a more peaceful and thoughtful existence with our planet and all its inhabitants, but so much needs to change for that to happen.

This sculpture is about the darker side of the cattle industry. It conjures a greedy old god from a bygone era, wearing his leather clad mitre like hat, protruding with cattle horns and military style clothing symbolizing his dominance and war like mind. He is willingly oblivious to the catastrophic repercussions of the worldwide cattle industry, the obscene amount of methane gas produced by cattle, the inhumane treatment of these animals, and the overwhelming destruction of the Amazon to make way for soybean farms and cattle lots. The greed and lust for power has turned this god into an old withered dried out soul and “Meat Monger‘’ happily trading flesh for profit. His power is constantly being fed by the daily worship of undereducated consumers and greedy mega corporations that have created a monopoly in the global food industry. His table is the unforeseen slaughtering block of our environment, propped up and supplemented by our most basic needs to consume.

Deborah Grayson Ahoskie is on the Other Side of Harlem, 2023 woodcut on Arnhem 1618 320 gsm paper 22” x 30” edition of edition of 5 1 AP 1 TP For the last 7 years I have been deeply immersed in what I have been calling origin stories reflecting on questions like: Who are our people? How did we get here? Who was here before we got here and do we honor and respect them? How have we connected with and nurtured the land and the community? What are the rituals that have sustained and carried our families? What artifacts have we fashioned to bring magic, love, and life to the land and our community? I wonder and wander through historical and cultural narratives and maps to visually re-present what AND WHO has been violently annotated or redacted from and therefore rendered in.visible in historical archives.

“Ahoskie is on the Other Side of Harlem’’ is one part of the origin story of my family’s beginnings on and in the soil of Bertie and Hertford county North Carolina. The detailed work of carving and inking each layer combined with the development of color, volume, tone and texture in the image mimics the process I undertake to methodically excavate the layers of historical archives -- with all their lacunae --to identify the nuance of origins and our relationship to the land and communities.

Amy Gross Biota Consero, 2023 yarn beads, paper, wire plastic, paint polymer clay 36” x 50” x 23” Biota: The animal and plant life of a particular habitat.

Consero: To sow or plant with or in. To bind together. To create. Connect. Entwine.

My hybrid landscapes have been my attempts to make sense of both the invisible and visible elements that connect and battle and balance and make all things possible. Living in our own experiential scale alone is to be denied the awe inspiring reality of our dependance on the smallest of life. Our human cells are outnumbered by microorganisms in our bodies ten to one. Fungi are the largest kingdom of life on Earth. Ninety percent of the living things on this planet are smaller than we are. And we are intertwined, as dependent on what we are unaware of as what we have declared necessities.

The more I understand this, the closer I feel to even the smallest patches of wildlife, and the less destructive I am apt to be. But I am constantly frustrated by my distance from the nature around me, excluded from the secrets and the mysteries. In myth, we assign the qualities of nature to beings like ourselves, and have them explain the day and night, the seasons, the weather, the behavior of animals and plants. It binds us to this earth. My story is a journey into a landscape that, this time, explains itself to me. I enter as an eye and lose my form, I am the size of a snail, I am smaller, now a worm, a caterpillar, a root, mycelium, a mushroom, pollen, a molecule. I’m a spore, then a grass blade, a snake in the grass. I twist with the roots, I work my way through and under and around. I am caught in a birds beak. I change color, the story is also the color, silver to black to green to blue. I bloom as a flower, the flower is my eye, I am the eye again on a wandering snail. But I return, my eyes are full, I spill out, multiplying, I am back, I see it differently, myself, but changed.

Aisha Harrison Roots, 2023 clay, paint 23” x 22” x 19” I spent much of my life feeling like I didn’t belong. The idea of “belonging” is now starting to be a buzz word/idea especially in the workplace and in education, but it is not something that you can just make happen by being “inclusive”.

It is a deep feeling built on many things and is foundational for feeling whole and grounded. Growing up biracial and queer in a society that decides your identities based on your appearance was very difficult. This was especially true because my appearance did not lead the people around me, who were predominantly white mainstream and inexperienced with anyone different than them, to be able to place me in categories that they felt like they understood or knew. I have cultivated my sense of belonging through making art work, finding people who see me, learning about my history and how it manifests today, and feeling into intuitive places of connection.

Some of these relationships are based on connections to my human and more than human ancestors. In Roots in specific, I am working the idea of belonging through roots to the trees that grow where I live through hair/DNA, and imagining a space where the connections that exist between all living things is visible.

Richard W. James Portmanteau, 2023 earthenware, found objects, underglaze 32” x 16” x 14” My work is primarily about questioning the cultural lenses that were handed to me as a child of the rural and religious south, so biblical tales are often targets of interrogation within my studio practice. These stories contain a wide range of imagery and symbolism meant to convey moral lessons and the word of God. They also happen to be generously seasoned with inconsistencies and outright hypocrisies, which make for good artwork fodder.

When considering all of stories in need of re-wilding, I had a hard time picking a single fable from everything in that book. I instead thought about what all of those stories added up to – an epic tale where humans are unique creatures, created by God with purpose and meaning. The result is a worldview where humans are completely separated from the rest of the natural world by way of divine order. It is this story, that I feel is the most dangerous and in need of “re-wilding” its deleterious ramifications are many and far reaching.

The chimpanzee is the closet analog human have in the animal kingdom in terms of behavior and social structures. Using them as the subject of my sculptures allows me to strip away any veil of civility that might cloak our more primal instincts and actions. In this instance, it also serves to “rewrite” the biblical narrative that we are unique amongst all other creatures. I feel that it is helpful in seeing myself clearly to remember that, despite my best attempts to rationalize and contextualize all my actions with a modern brain, I am still fundamentally attached to the basic needs and decision-making processes of everything else in the animal kingdom – just as special, unique, and important to the world as an earthworm.

Christine Kosiba Agency, 2023 hand sculpted ceramic snake and pomegranates with glass beads, underglaze, paint 12” x 12” x 18” Reflecting on the story of Hades and Persephone, I’m aware of our complicated relationships with snakes and with ourselves.

Hades, God of the Underworld, is often associated with snakes. Cerberus, a three-headed dog with numerous snakes protruding from its body guarded the gates to the Underworld. The snakes were able to inflict quick death and thereby connected to both the upper and lower worlds.

Hades abducted Persephone, Goddess of Flowers, and tricked her into eating the pomegranate seeds that sealed her fate to spend 6 months of each year as his bride in the Underworld.

The cloche serves as a curated ecosystem - the dried leaves speak to Demeter’s fury upon learning that Hades had taken her daughter and her wrathful wasting of the land. The moss represents life force and Persephone’s return to the upper world in Spring. It seems Persephone eventually accepted her fate, although her life thereafter would consist of living in two disparate environments symbolizing perpetual death and rebirth.

Persephone and snake were scripted into stories beyond their control. Persephone wanted to tend her flowers and spend her days among the living.

Snake also wants free agency and to live as a wild creature, vital to our ecosystem - neither, demon nor deity.

Michelle Laxalt instar (Luna), 2023 porcelain, underglaze, glaze 16” x 9” x 4” This hand-built, biomorphic porcelain sculpture has starry, gradated appendages with fleshy, feminine folds reminiscent of textured iris flower petals and Luna moth hindwings. While made specifically for In.Visible, the purposefully ambiguous sculpture is a continuation of my instar series, which reimagines the concepts of molting, regeneration, and metamorphosis. For instar (luna), I explored regional folklore and symbolism surrounding Luna moths and their nocturnal nature, in addition to the Greek myth of Iris, a winged messenger goddess and personification of the rainbow. Interestingly, the ancient Greek noun “iris” (Ἶρις) means both the rainbow and the halo of the moon, etymologically linking these two sources of inspiration. My intention is for the piece to have a guardian-like quality, like a perched Luna moth silently declaring its presence.

In the wild, the eyespots on the Luna moth’s wings function to fend off and redirect predators.

I wonder…would we act differently toward the natural world if we reimagined the eyespots instead as a symbolic message for us humans, an anthropomorphic warning of our shared vulnerability and mortality? How would we change our behavior in this unsustainable political, economic, and ecologic climate on the brink of collapse if we could truly feel the plants, animals, insects, and fungi we share this world with looking back at us?

Asia Mathis In the Beginning..., 2023 stoneware, underglazes, engobes, oxides, stains, glazes, melted glass 22 x 16 x 14 Rewind the world, rewind the humans, rewind the story. How can we tiptoe our way through a creation myth that feels true and like magic?

How can I take up that original material of clay and find a healer?

By acknowledging the earth, and asking to understand her through the story, through the clay.

Maybe it’s not a total re-write, maybe it’s a re-imagining, a recognition of multiplicity, a dissolving of the hero, villain, victim scenario.

Maybe it stays a little mushy, and the story shifts with the teller, as the climate shifts. Maybe we can imagine the great great great grandchildren of the fabled Adam and Eve as born from the soup of the earth, with roots for fingers, containing the full power of connection with the trees ( having their knowledge), rooted in the “garden” (earth), and many of them singing along with the animals before anyone ever though to write anything down, using their voices for connection, and not to divide or oppress. And from them comes thousands of stories and their great great grandparents’ story has all the same players, just with different roles and maybe even a happy ending, or maybe no ending at all.

Mac Star McCusker Bring Me My Flowers While I’m Alive, 2023 stoneware, cone 2 9” x 15” x 17” “Our earliest ancestors do not appear to have been biological determinists. There are societies all over the world that allowed for more than two sexes, as well as respecting the right of individuals to reassign their sex. And transsexuality, transgender, intersexuality, and bigender appear as themes in creation stories, legends, parables, and oral history.”

We have a place in history. There are thousands of books, essays, and field research citing transgender, bigender, transsexuality, and intersexuality in societies on every continent, in every stage of development. Hatred of sex and gender variation is not rooted in human nature.

“Those of us who cross the cultural boundaries of sex and gender are paying a terrible price. We face discrimination and physical violence. It takes so much courage to live our lives that sometimes just leaving our homes in the morning and facing the world as who we really are is in itself an act of resistance. But perhaps you didn’t know that we have a history of fighting against such injustice, and that today we are forging a movement for liberation.”

-Leslie Feinberg, Transgender Warriors

Shannon Moore Life, Death, Love and Wisdom carved and burned Pearwood, waxes, copper leaf 10” x 15” Our Corporeal Selves carved and burned Pearwood, waxes, powdered brass 10” x 15”

Humanity and nature are not separate, it is a simple story, but the lines have been blurred. We have lost touch with the natural world and consider ourselves separate from nature as well as from each other. The need to plant our feet on the ground has been forgotten, nothing grows in cement. Our Corporeal selves, our fleshy existence in the here and now is forever surrounded by the growth, light and movement of the natural world. All of us come from the Earth and will return to the Earth in a never-ending cycle that is at once a terror and a comfort. Life and Death are inevitable, the Wisdom and Love that we share is the most important of what is left behind, it is what binds us to each other.

Crystal Morey Infinitely Bound: Bison, 2021 hand sculpted porcelain, cone 7 12” x 6” x 7” Our overuse of resources has destroyed our planet’s natural balance. The skies churn, rivers flood, oceans rise, and forests burn. The world is a changed place, and the most vulnerable feel the effects first.

Crystal Morey’s human-animal-plant hybrids are an imagined antidote, like seeds awakened by wildfire that embody adaptations to these disastrous circumstances. They defy science, giving us a hopeful second chance. They plant the precious seeds they carry with them, beginning a journey back to a sustainable, flourishing environment. Yet their fragility and delicacy is a reminder of the struggle of fringe and endangered species that is a consequence of the apocalypse that has been created by rapid industrialization. Through these hybrids, Morey addresses issues like ocean acidification and habitat consumption while drawing attention to nature’s beauty, adaptability, and interconnection. By suggesting that they could change what feels like an inevitable trajectory, she creates empathy for the most vulnerable, allowing us to hope that it isn’t too late.

Kyungmin Park Pfff...Get away from me! I won’t turn into sea foam because of you!!!, 2023 stoneware, underglaze, epoxy 24” x 13” x 10” In Andersen’s fairy tale, the Little Mermaid takes the knife and agrees to kill the prince. But when she tries to do it, she finds that she can’t kill him, and instead, she sacrifices herself to save his life, which turns into sea foam. This was one of the bedtime stories I read as a little girl. The last illustration in my children’s book was Ariel stabbing her own chest, and the fancy boat with the prince and another princess kept sailing forward.

Why this old fairy tale story is so cruel? Why does the little mermaid have to sacrifice herself for a love who couldn’t even recognize her? Thankfully, later in the Disney movie, Ariel (Little Mermaid) marries Eric (Prince Charming), and the two live happily ever after.

As a young artist, I was also fascinated by the idea of studying art and living in a different country, and I moved my whole life from South Korea to the US. It was fun and exciting since everything was new to me: new language, new culture, new friends and school! So, I admire and can be connected with Ariel’s adventurous spirit toward an unknown, unfamiliar world. But will I read Little Mermaid’s story to my own children? I do not think so. “Ariel, go live your own fantastic aqua life! You deserve far better!”

Hannah Pierce Captive, 2023 earthenware 16” x 14” x 5.5” In short, I have always been interested in dimension, illusion, and open-ended metaphors. My work is intended to make the viewer question space and reality. Captive is a unique piece among my work. The lambs are painted using marble sculptures of lambs as references. I was very captivated by the great range of sheep imagery from 17001800’s French paintings and marble sculptures I saw at the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, France. They are depicted as companions, innocent and pure creatures, while also depicted as slaughtered and sacrificed. These themes are connected in the eyes of those aware of the religious affiliations associated with sheep, but probably a complex, jarring contrast from a fresh, unaware perspective.

Lamb and sheep have been globally and commonly used iconography for centuries, carrying a vast range of different, yet overlapping meanings.

Captive challenges the viewer to draw from their own histories and affiliations with sheep. In this piece, they are painted like flash art tattoos in the black, liquid abyss hair, depicted licking and eating hair and cords among a whispering figure and imagery related to communication.

When I think of sheep, I view their obedience, flock mentality, and collective thinking as it relates to human qualities.

Beau Raymond Swamp Speaks, 2023 red earthenware, underglaze, glaze, lust, enamel 18” x 18” x 8.5” Raised in the swampy regions of Southern Louisiana I have been aware of coastal erosion and the effects of man on the landscape since the 1990s. Story Telling is an integral part of Cajun Culture and many of them focus on the swamps. The story of Old Man Dugas focuses on a hermit who lived in the swamps and could speak to the animals as well as control the weather.

Swamp Speaks is a reference to man reconnecting with nature and nature fighting back. We need to reconnect with nature in order to progress, not alter the landscape but rather adapt like the swamp animals. Mankind may think they are in control, but we need to remember it is Mother Nature.

If we continue down the path we are on, it is predicated that my childhood home will be under water in the next 15-20. Many Cultures around the world will be affected

by Climate Change regardless of how it is politicized. I have a strong connection to the swamps and love all the animals within. When Mother Nature calls the animals are the first to hear and then the Swamp Speaks.

David Robinson Alluvial Dispersion #2, 2023 terra cotta, hand-built and fired to cone 04 with glazes, underglazes, oxides and Mason stains 46” x 60” x 3.5” Scattered across this alluvial field, disparate elements whisper a story or perhaps a refrain from a song, at once familiar and obscure. The elements are the relics and debris of various civilizations, including our own. They refer to shards of ancient pottery, figurative religious devotionals, fertility goddesses, and Neolithic tools and amulets….the work and products of the human hand.

Combined with these art-historical elements are contemporary artifacts as well, including organic and inorganic debris, suggesting industrial waste and even household refuse. Abstraction and realism are embraced equally as are the sacred and the profane. Taken together, these objects yield an uncertain story. Timelines are removed; traditional hierarchies are no longer assumed. Gods, garbage, histories, and myths….everything is given equal weight, inviting the reinterpretation and retelling of the story of the human experience. The viewer is left to stitch together and reconstruct from this detritus a new narrative, a personal or universal history…or a myth of their own making.

What are the stories and legends to be found amongst the gods and the garbage?

Kirsten Stingle Odyssey of Belonging, 2023 hand built porcelain and ceramic finishes with mixed media 21” x 21” x 9” We all have heard of a Sisyphean task. In today’s hustle culture where productivity and achievement are the overarching measurements of success, if not being, we use this term derisively to identify an act that is overwhelmingly arduous and futile—nothing could be worse than consigned to this fate.

What if we twist the fate of Sisyphus as an anecdote to Modernity’s propulsion to achieve, in which the moral is not the goal but appreciating the journey? As the climb and descent is repeated over and over, time becomes slow and cyclical—not linear. Sisyphus’ focus gradually shifts from a singular, desired result to the epic experience of the odyssey itself. Sisyphus notices the ecosystem around him. Each climb carries with it companionship with the boulder and surrounding ecology, as well as the exaltation or emptiness of solitary descent.

Through this lens, the gods may have been bestowing a great gift of understanding that few of us today embrace.

It is the journey itself that is the joy, the meaning, the purpose. This Sisyphean gift is how we can better focus our life in terms of presence and belonging.

Roxanne Swentzell I See You, 2023 clay 34” x 11” x 23” The gaps between us need to shrink in order for us to really get along. We need to understand each other, in order to heal. This pueblo clown is inviting you to engage. “I see you, now you see me”. Practice.

Gallery Notes

In.Visible On display in The Bascom’s Thompson Gallery through December 30, 2023

Gallery Notes

Deborah Grayson

Curated by Kirsten Stingle

323 Franklin Road Highlands, NC 28741 828.526.4949 | TheB ascom.org

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