Next up in the Main Gallery is Being, an exhibition that explores the mystery of embodiment, and the complexity of coexistence from individual and collective perspectives. This show features core artists Denise Driscoll and Gin Stone. The show will run through October 27th with an opening reception on Friday, October 4th from 6:00–8:00 p.m., and an Artists Talk on Saturday, October 26th from 3:00–5:00 p.m.

Driscoll and Stone enter mythological and imaginary spaces to evoke interconnection between human and other-than-human beings. Stone’s “Humane Taxidermy” sculptures and Driscoll’s “Shimmer” paintings offer an experience of profound wonderment in the presence of others. Below is a conversation between the artists that took place during the development of the show.

Gin Stone, Huli Jing — Gin Stone, *Huli Jing*

Denise: I am so taken with the utter magic you create with such simple materials. How did you start using longline fishing gear and taxidermy forms?

Gin: Using the fishing gear was a result of a long process of experimentation with found materials whose genesis began with “painter’s block” and long walks on the beach to clear my head. I began picking up bits of rope, line, and marine debris for future use as color inspiration. I then started using the debris as 'paint,' creating landscapes on a flat surface. I discovered the abundance of used fisherman's longline gear discarded locally as a dye-able material, thus expanding my color palette. Using the dyed line on a flat surface for color studies led to finally combining this knowledge with my love of natural history, science, animals, and myth to create 3–dimensional sculptures that tell a story.

This humane taxidermy work represents many things to me: the reuse of fishing gear that would otherwise go to a landfill, and helping raise awareness of the plight of our oceans, now increasingly filled with discarded gear which entangles marine life. Nearly ten years after my initial use of the material, longline fishing gear is rapidly disappearing from the local landscape, due to both the decline in small commercial fishing fleets due to previous decades of overfishing and the resulting regulation on lack of cod population. A second frequently overlooked reason for the demise of the fleets and its gear is the gentrification of the Cape.

Gin Stone, Miniature Spinal Feather Horse

Denise: How will you adjust your work now that the longline fishing gear is becoming scarce? I’ve been seeing your cyanotypes on Instagram, but didn’t realize where they were going until you posted a recent figure with a cyanotype “pelt.”

Gin: I am now expanding my work materials due to these developments, and I still prefer recycled and natural materials. I have been adding corn husks, feathers, and cyanotypes to my work.

Gin: Your work reminds me of cellular structures. Are you referencing biological structures intentionally?

Denise: My paintings grow from simple forms repeated and layered many times: the loop, the oval, the circle and the dot are building blocks. The accumulations of these marks give my paintings their structure, so yes, they are very much like cells. Lately I’ve been focusing on the spaces between the shapes, the mesh that connects them all together. In the stories I tell myself while painting, this mesh might be the life force that animates the cells of a Being, or it might be the energy that connects all living beings. I do believe that all is connected and that can be both positive and negative. Seemingly benign actions can be terribly destructive when they are repeated hundreds, thousands or billions of times. In the same light, small actions, in accumulation, can have a positive effect. Scientists and philosophers have a very hard time defining and explaining consciousness. Some even suggest that all life is conscious, an idea I entertain in these paintings.

Gin: Back when we first talked about showing our work together, you told me that you were inspired by accounts of sentience in plants. Do you think you’ve captured that idea of consciousness in other living beings here in these paintings?

Denise: I think I am painting the confusion and excitement that results from trying to imagine other consciousness. How do we understand, acknowledge that other Beings exist at the center of their own universe, not just as accessories to our lives? I try to decenter myself, and to see humans as other-than-central. I think this comes across in my paintings, which rarely have a focal point and extend beyond the canvas in all directions. These paintings feel chaotic to me, and unsettling, but there is also great excitement and energy, the world is so strangely filled with life.

Gin: Why so many dots? Does the pointalism involved in your work draw parallels with minutiae? And how does that relate to the work on a grand scale?

Denise: The dots provide a way for me to think about the very tiny and also the very large at the same time. I tell myself stories while I work–such as imagining a certain shape stands in for a species and all the dots are the individual creatures–or that same shape might be a single body with all the dots being the other organisms within or dependent upon that body. I think we’ve gotten used to thinking about the microscopic creatures that are everywhere around us, but we are less comfortable grasping a perspective where we are the tiny ones next to something inconceivably huge. I’ve been trying to think ecologically. How do I understand my impact and actions as an individual, as one of billions? Painting a large canvas that is covered with thousands of dots give me time to think and feel my way through questions that would just slip away without the physical process to hold them in mind.

Gin: Where do you draw inspiration for the color palettes used?

Denise: I like to start with single-pigment colors, often transparent ones, that are layered to create optical mixtures. The intersections between loops and shapes contain the luminous, unplanned colors that take my breath away. The final layer of dots, often iridescent, pearlescent or metallic, also act as modifiers, mists of color that knock down, or enhance, the colors that lie below. The unpredictable, accidental color parallels the unpredictable, accidental and surprising nature of our encounters with other Beings.

Denise: I often find myself using “all of the colors” and sometimes feel I should be more controlled and less exuberant. The colors in your sculptures are muted, earthy and gorgeously consistent. Do the physical properties of the rope keep you in this range or are you just incredibly disciplined? How do you make your color and pattern choices for each figure?

Gin: I tend to stick to natural colors, even if they present in an unnatural way on my pieces. I like to keep the colors of everything in my surroundings to a few basics with a few favorite color combos showing up frequently. I tend to shy away from bright and vibrant.

Denise: Your figures exert a strong presence. I feel a sense of awe, wonder, and mystery, especially with the human/animal chimeras. When you are making a new sculpture, is there a moment when it “comes to life?”

Gin: They come to life at the end, when I get to the eyes and the ears. Even a subtle shift in how I place the lines around the eyes convey different emotions. And as always, you can tell a lot about a creature’s feelings by how it is holding its ears. I spend a great deal of time studying live animals.

Denise: What stories do you tell yourself while creating a piece? Does the work grow from a story or does each piece tell you its story as you are making it?

Gin: Many of the chimera are created from the mythology from across cultural platforms, such as ancient Egypt, Greece and Asia. They are our myths incarnate. Frequently I allow my singular creatures, or ones that are of a single animal source, to begin to create their own mythology. I now have a series of bears that have their own tribal roles like the medicine man and tribal chief.

Denise: Your work makes me think of the magical transformations so common in folktales and other mythologies. How are these moments of magic relevant today?

Gin: Not sure you want the answer. I use it as a distraction from the horrors taking place on our planet, maybe others can as well.

Denise: I think that is a really important function of art, to sense our way through things we cannot grasp, and to provide an opportunity to experience hope, optimism, and awe.

Being: Embodiment and the Complexity of Coexistence