ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

This work represents a shift towards the settings, images and artefactual fragments that address or surround the human body. Working from an anthropological perspective focused on the ‘near contemporary,’ they seek to frame an atmosphere wherein things recognizable morph into a slightly skewed version of reality—a reality wherein the familiar begins to dissolve into a liminal experience—a parallel space affected by subconscious tendencies seething beneath the surface.

The work also attempts to create a clear path through typical value structures established between the natural and the synthetic, the hand-made vs. the found. In this space, images behave somewhat like objects and objects like images. The distinction is resolved through the treatment of concrete things as impressions—objects employed to construct narratives whose defining components are connotations upheld by references extending beyond the edge of the frame.

Using fragments of articles and accessories that are worn: parts of gloves, sunglasses, headphones, flip-flops, shirt cuffs; objects are presented in an almost museum-like format, with low-lying display supports and small plinths that read as part of the work. Photographic images, which are the result of multiple layers of scans, are presented on the wall framed by domestic carpet suggesting their own architectural space. All of the works seem to have dual functions, appearing as both artifacts and aesthetic objects at the same time. 

IAN PEDIGO

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Ian Pedigo is a mixed-media artist who works with objects and photographic imagery depicting fragments of an imagined contemporary past, carefully combining natural, hand-made and synthetic components with an explicit sensitivity to their relational qualities. He grew up and lived in Anchorage, Alaska, until pursuing the study of visual art in Texas, culminating in an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin in 2002. Since then, he has had solo exhibitions in Chicago and New York, as well as Canada, France, Italy, Sweden and the UK. His work has been reviewed in publications including Artforum, Art in America, Frieze, Sculpture Magazine, The New York Times and the New Yorker. A monograph was published about his work in 2012. He currently lives in New York, NY (Queens) with his family.   

http://ianpedigo.com/

Image: The Light is Buried Under Flowers and Noises, 2016; straw, plastic, bone, string, carpet, wood; 28 x 16 x 2 inches

PRESS

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