Rhetorical Galleries Presents “Desert Wild” at the Shipping Containers at 408 E. Roosevelt St, Phoenix, opening on Third Friday, July 17th with a closing reception scheduled for First Friday, August 7th, 2015. “Desert Wild” features the work of three local artists commenting on the fragile and challenging nature of the environment in the Valley of the Sun. Artists include: Mikey Estes, Matthew Mosher and Danielle Wood.
Matthew Mosher brings us “Tributaries of Our Lost Affinity” (top image), which examines our desire to find something we feel is missing from our lives through our smart devices. Using their cell phones, viewers are invited to activate the light sensitive sonified sculpture evoking a parallel with the gesture of looking for a missing physical item. The sculpture takes form as growths of crustaceous barnacle like cones on the gallery walls while the sound in the space recalls the quagmire of a wet landscape.
“Recent Experiments in Home Gardening” (middle image) is an exhibition of new and recent works by interdisciplinary artist Mikey Estes. The works in this exhibition subvert the everyday and the natural world, creating an instability between the domestic and the wild, or the normative and the queer. Retooling purchased and found materials such as faux plants and synthetic hair, Estes’s playful approach to art-making pries open a space for new queer subjectivities.
Danielle Wood’s “Baroque Sensibilities” (bottom image) views the ocean as a metaphor for the subconscious and the multiple layers of meaning found in communication and social relationships. This installation explores the surreal experience of pattern, rhythm, and the decorative aspect of nature through a ceramic aquatic experience in which the viewer is surrounded by the artwork, no longer a passive viewer, but an active participant.
Matthew Mosher brings us “Tributaries of Our Lost Affinity” (top image), which examines our desire to find something we feel is missing from our lives through our smart devices. Using their cell phones, viewers are invited to activate the light sensitive sonified sculpture evoking a parallel with the gesture of looking for a missing physical item. The sculpture takes form as growths of crustaceous barnacle like cones on the gallery walls while the sound in the space recalls the quagmire of a wet landscape.
“Recent Experiments in Home Gardening” (middle image) is an exhibition of new and recent works by interdisciplinary artist Mikey Estes. The works in this exhibition subvert the everyday and the natural world, creating an instability between the domestic and the wild, or the normative and the queer. Retooling purchased and found materials such as faux plants and synthetic hair, Estes’s playful approach to art-making pries open a space for new queer subjectivities.
Danielle Wood’s “Baroque Sensibilities” (bottom image) views the ocean as a metaphor for the subconscious and the multiple layers of meaning found in communication and social relationships. This installation explores the surreal experience of pattern, rhythm, and the decorative aspect of nature through a ceramic aquatic experience in which the viewer is surrounded by the artwork, no longer a passive viewer, but an active participant.