Autopoiesis: Creative Self-construction
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Exhibit Dates
January 20 - February 13, 2015
Description
The Reynolds Gallery presents, Autopoiesis: "creative self-construction" on view January 20 through February 13, 2015. This exhibition includes work by three artists, Glenna Cole Allee, Man Yee Lam and Summer Lee, exploring themes of transience and continuity, attachment and release, and the borders of what is predetermined and what is mutable, and therefore re-imaginable. A reception for the artists will be held in the gallery, January 22, 6:00-9:00 pm, with an Artists' Talk 7:00 - 8:00 pm. All events are free and open to the public.
Glenna Cole Allee's photographic installation, 1912, is a site specific constellation of photographs printed on semi-transparent silk stitched together into hanging panels, with small nests made of silk filaments lined with human hair. Created from images of the artist's grandmother, from self-portraits, from the artists own hair and strands given by members of her community, this immersive environment of "macro landscapes" references genetic and cultural legacy as passed down the time span of a century, and the intimacy and distance of family.
Man Yee Lam's work addresses the complex nature of freedom and intentionality when the self is caught and bound within the webs of history. In her "Self-Combing Women," here presented in video form, the artist constructs a large woven net connected to the walls of the gallery, referencing cocooning silk worms. Her "Hoarding" project, an exquisite collection of tiny portraits printed onto acorns, deals with the transitory nature of acquisitiveness; the suspended sculptural installation "Skin" deals with attachment and identity in a different manner.
Summer Lee's subtle and meditative series of paintings and video, the Elegy series, and her installation Into The Nearness of Distance utilize the catching and releasing of a bird as a metaphor for the fragility of being and to evoke the dimensions of existence that lie beyond the realm of conscious knowledge. Summer's work is inspired by ancient Chinese poetry which describes the state of being constantly and repeatedly caught and freed, grasping and letting go, as the central tension of human existence.
Recommended Citation
University of the Pacific, "Autopoiesis: Creative Self-construction" (2015). Reynolds Gallery Exhibits Archive. 53.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/rg-exhibits/53
