Splitsplice

August 4 – October 9, 2016
Temporary 112 Blue Star Location

Featuring Kirsten Reynolds

ARTIST STATEMENT:

“To ‘split,’ is the act of division, a whole broken apart into disparate parts. To ‘splice’ is a method of joinery, used most often to strengthen a weakness or bridge a lack in materials. The two actions are intertwined processes of change. In Splitsplice, a new site-specific installation for Contemporary at Blue Star, I explore the potential of irresolution within architecture, language, and the body. Poised in a state of arrest and precarious balance, remnants from architectural structures of unknown origin appear to be casually, and yet formally re-arranged: standing evidence of an absurd plan and peculiar labor.

As the viewer moves throughout the installation, the structure’s framework simultaneously defines and disrupts points of view. Space becomes tangibly experienced as transitional and performative rather than fixed. Illusory tactics of painting complicate the installation’s physical presence as if the architectural remnants emerged from a cartoonish, parallel world. Faux finishes, like painted wood-grain, and colorful silkscreened patterns inspired by Japanese origami paper, transform materials into playful exaggerations and heighten the tension between the evident and the artificial. The structure’s incompletion reveals what remains and activates what could become.”

BIOGRAPHY:

Kirsten Reynolds lives and works in Newmarket, NH. She received her MFA in studio art and critical theory from Maine College of Art, Portland, ME and her BFA in Art Video from Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. An artist working with installation, sculpture, and printmaking, Reynolds has shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions throughout the U.S. Her exhibition with Contemporary at Blue Star is the artist’s first solo presentation in Texas.

For more information visit Kirsten Reynolds’ website.