For most students and professors, the month of January is a time to wind down. The craziness that is the fall semester is over, the holidays are in full-effect, and for many it’s now time to take a little break before the following spring semester kicks off – not for Samantha Sethi.
Samantha Sethi, Creative Alliance Resident Artist, has two shows going on during this “down time” – Permanence and Counterweight.
Permanence, opening on January 4th at IA&A at HILLYER gallery in Washington, DC, references a broader view of our world as a landscape both inhabited by and studied by humankind, altered even as it is observed — understanding the world as simultaneously the location and the material of our pursuit of meaning. In her work, Sethi explores our experience of the natural world, our impact on it, and its relationship to our built environment. The objects and systems on display examine the ways in which the world we see and move through can be modeled visually and experientially. By layering natural materials and processes, such as ice and erosion, together with technological interventions, such as reproduction and isolation, these works are at once both actions and images, both the event at hand and the record or trace used to represent it through time.
Counterweight, opening on January 26th here at Creative Alliance, explore the meaning of “permanent” and the artifacts we will leave behind. It questions, what happens to the lightweight, inconsequential objects we call disposable but are in fact as enduring as the things we intend to last? Sethi describes how she struggles to grasp the permanent nature of these temporary objects of convenience, many of which sustain our existence, but cost so little to produce they are often given away. Once disposed of, these objects cease to exist in our minds, but they continue to exist somewhere else, somewhere out of sight. She presents the question: How do we reconcile their transience in our lives with their longevity in the world? Her work in this exhibition seeks to understand these objects by transforming them, by seeing them in new terms — perhaps in the way the rest of the natural world sees them, rather than how we do.
Samantha is on track to have an amazing January!
Show Info:
PERMANENCE
Location: IA&A AT HILLYER
On View: January 4 – 27, 2019
Opening Reception: Friday January 4, 2019, 6-9pm
IA&A AT HILLYER | 9 Hillyer Court, NW, Washington, DC 20008
Hours: Tue-Fri 12-6 pm, Sat-Mon 12-5 pm
COUNTERWEIGHT
Location: Creative Alliance
On View: January 26 – March 2
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 26, 2019 6-8pm
Gallery Talk: Saturday, February 9, 2019 3:30-5:30pm
Creative Alliance | 3134 Eastern Ave. Baltimore MD 21224
Hours: Tues-Sat 11am-7pm
