Linda Leslie Brown: Plastiglomerate
Gallery member Linda Leslie Brown says of the process of creating work for this exhibition, “This particular body of work is different in a few ways. Part of the process involves a playful collaboration with my husband James Montford, who is a prodigious walker with our hound dog, Red. As they go on their 10-mile jaunts throughout the city of Boston, James finds many of the plastic objects and other fragments I use in my work. I think it’s because we live near to the Children’s Museum that so many toy parts end up in my supply boxes.”
Brown did a residency at Haystack in Maine last year working in the clay shop and worked as an independent study member at Mudflat ceramic studios in Somerville this past summer. Ceramics are relatively new part of her sculpture practice and she plans to continue to develop this part of her work. She says particularly of this exhibition, “The part of me that loves to collect things, combine them, and transform them goes back to childhood. My imagination is sparked by recombination, and by the surprises evoked as objects coax out memories, illusions, and questions. Recently, I have been astonished and concerned, as we all have been, by the proliferation of plastic pollution in our landfills and oceans. Will-we bury ourselves, in a Wall-EE style dystopia? Or will new living creatures eventually evolve who can make use of our thoughtless mess? I want my work to enchant, provoke, engage and disturb viewers. Perhaps they’ll be inspired to undertake some transformations of their own.”
In this recent body of work, gallery member Nat Martin is fascinated with constructing false landscapes from his older photographs. The images are constructions of actual landscapes he has collected which are then altered towards the creation of an artificial or imaginary place.
This work began when Martin was trying to locate a small photograph he had taken as a reference for another project he was working on. As he manipulated the reference image he set challenges for himself, such as changing the mood or lighting of the original. As he worked on this project, he then started consciously adding in layers of stylization based on photographic history. He says of this work, “I want the viewer to be drawn in by the romantic effect of the images… these were intended to be visually seductive. But I ultimately want the viewer to be left in an artificial landscape- taking in a scene that has never existed and not knowing how to categorize it or how it has been altered. I like those slippery spaces.”
Linda Leslie Brown: Plastiglomerate is on view in the Kingston Main Gallery, Phyllis Ewen: Deep Time in the Center Gallery and Nat Martin: New Landscapes is on view in the Kingston Project Space through October 28, 2018.
Kingston Gallery 