• post-scarcity: new work by

  • Eliza Fernand
  • Jodie Mack
  • Monica Herrera

  • curated by Thea Liberty Nichols

  • June 19 - July 25, 2009
  • Opening Reception: Friday June 19 (7-10PM)

  • 65GRAND is pleased to present the group exhibition "post-scarcity," curated by Thea Liberty Nichols, featuring current work that investigates the use of both craft and handicraft, and incorporates networks of upcycling, reciprocity, and the gift-economy within which these three artists work.

  • In Eliza Fernand's performance "gushing" the audience is presented with a day in the life of an erupting volcano, where embroidered textiles and human energy function as the generative elements in a sensual display of surreal transformation. Prerecorded audio samples bring to mind the hypnotic and repetitive hums of a reassuring mother. Part puppeteer, part tribal shaman, Fernand summons forth a world of brightly colored fantasies, where forces of nature that usually symbolize grandiosity and destruction appear initially shy and curious, where violence mixes with playfulness, and bodily functions find expression in the gaseous movements of mother nature.

  • In her video installation "screensaver," Jodie Mack uses paper cutouts and stop-motion animation to create a mesmerizing loop of circular shapes and cometing forms that follow seductively choreographed spirals and turns, a series of transformations that embrace both angled reflection and divisional symmetry. Viewers may sense themselves witnessing something similar in theme to the time-lapse photography of a wilderness landscape where the cycle of seasons seems almost graphed in its courtships and its partings, every form of life with its definite point of entry and its inevitable route of departure.

  • Monica Herrera's installation "Impatience" consists of wooden troughs attached to gallery walls, through which metal bearings are sent on their way with the help of audience participation. Meant to be as much an audible experience as it is a visual one, "Impatience" provides a reminder that in our day-to-day routines and monotonies, in the culturally imposed need to get the ball rolling, one may wonder whether there's any actual comfort in the saying, it's all downhill from here. Herrera brings us up against this psychological angst and seeks to calm the anxiety ridden mind-state with a focus on the comforting simplicity of material minimalism and the participatory togetherness of collaborative art. Amidst the droning sound of balls rolling on wood, one might feel that the heavens still remain a bowling alley, and the lanes go on forever.

  • Eliza Fernand lives and works in Oakland, CA. She received her BFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2006. She has exhibited work in galleries throughout the country.

  • Jodie Mack lives and works in Chicago. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007 and a Media Arts Fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council in 2008.

  • Monica Herrera lives and works in Chicago and Mexico City. She earned her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008. She has exhibited work at the Smart Museum and the Hyde Park Arts Center.

  • Thea Liberty Nichols received her MAAH from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007. She curated an exhibition of ephemera related to The Chicago Imagists for the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, Art Institute of Chicago in 2008 and has written for various Chicago print and online publications since 2007. She lives and works in Chicago.