Jesse Pace
Needles and Columns, 2015
mixed media installation: annealed wire, vintage sewing pattern paper
Tea-stained stalactites and stalagmites welcome you into Jesse Pace's Needles and Columns. These geo-glacial structures invite exploration of their delicacy and decay, monumental teeth bursting from the raw-wooden jaw of Sugar City's floor.
Pace has applied old McCalls dress patterns paper-mache style to annealed wire in cave-formations faceted with organic/geometric patterns. The aged paper seamlessly integrates with the floor, with one notable exception where a metal heating-grate interrupts the organic flow of wood to paper.
Walking through the work, a video projector illuminates the structures with flickering blue light, and the observer is inscribed on the piece in silhouette as they roam. Most observe from outside, making those who venture in part of the spectacle. The difficulty of engaging with work without feeling self-conscious is heightened by the shadow casting effect: to be enveloped you have to be willing to enter a spotlight of sorts.
Needles and Columns, 2015
mixed media installation: annealed wire, vintage sewing pattern paper
Tea-stained stalactites and stalagmites welcome you into Jesse Pace's Needles and Columns. These geo-glacial structures invite exploration of their delicacy and decay, monumental teeth bursting from the raw-wooden jaw of Sugar City's floor.
Pace has applied old McCalls dress patterns paper-mache style to annealed wire in cave-formations faceted with organic/geometric patterns. The aged paper seamlessly integrates with the floor, with one notable exception where a metal heating-grate interrupts the organic flow of wood to paper.
Walking through the work, a video projector illuminates the structures with flickering blue light, and the observer is inscribed on the piece in silhouette as they roam. Most observe from outside, making those who venture in part of the spectacle. The difficulty of engaging with work without feeling self-conscious is heightened by the shadow casting effect: to be enveloped you have to be willing to enter a spotlight of sorts.
A central triad of formations join above eye level, growing together overhead to cradle the head/face in gentle teeth: they hold gently, giving a sense of their sharpness impending but not piercing. Standing with these structures in your peripheral vision gives a fission of danger alongside the security of being enclosed.
The work challenges our mental division between the natural and constructed worlds. By crafting organic forms out of industrial materials, Pace has blurred the line humanity too-often draws between us and "everything else." It's too lonely inside this line: the blurring is intriguing.
The work challenges our mental division between the natural and constructed worlds. By crafting organic forms out of industrial materials, Pace has blurred the line humanity too-often draws between us and "everything else." It's too lonely inside this line: the blurring is intriguing.
Pace grew up in Niagara Falls, often doing works in Graffiti in an effort to hew out space for himself in a physical environment with no room for agency or creativity. He is soon off to pursue his BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His Buffalo summer was spent in anticipation, working through Needles and Columns as an extension of that early space-claiming activity. Working through large installations is a way to invite ownership of the environment by the spiritually-oppressed.
If you are wondering what the hell I mean by "spiritually-oppressed," take this quick quiz:
Have you experienced any of the following in the past 30 days:
Congratulations! You are spiritually oppressed. Needles and Columns invites you to drop all the bs for a moment and consider claiming some space for yourself,
If you are wondering what the hell I mean by "spiritually-oppressed," take this quick quiz:
Have you experienced any of the following in the past 30 days:
- Exposure to body-shaming tabloids when you just want to buy bread.
- An inability to un-learn the lyrics to Happy.
- That person on Facebook who "just thought you should know."
- Constant enslavement to the requirements of linear time.
- Listicles.
Congratulations! You are spiritually oppressed. Needles and Columns invites you to drop all the bs for a moment and consider claiming some space for yourself,
Needles and Columns is on view at Sugar City until August 23rd, 2015.
Gallery hours:
Fridays 5:30-7:30 and by appointment at [email protected]
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