KIDNEY-SHAPED EAR - Parlour and Ramp Gallery - Chicago IL - March 2022
In the practice acupuncture, the ear holds within it a system of the entire body. The terrain of the ear becomes a google map. Placed pins from a small and isolated vantage point expand awareness of the orientation of the organs. To hear. To feel. To heal.
In Hebrew tradition, the kidney was associated with the innermost emotions and secret thoughts. Used as an omen metaphor, god could easily discern the moral standing and true character of any individual. Later, as medicine advanced and the kidney became known to filter waste from the blood, its status within a hierarchy of bodily significance lowered. The locus of the soul inverted.
This exhibition shows instances of isolated organs and plays with metaphors of their related hierarchies. Ceramic surfaces, with their associations with bodily maintenance (cooking, cleaning, bathing) are very important here. In some works, foamcore and tinted resin recreate the surface quality of real tile. A kind of ceramics in drag. In other instances, ceramic wall works are hydrodipped into screen printed images, merging glazed stoneware with images of bodily spaces. The work uses liquidity to distort images and fuse process-based craft traditions together. Wetness abounds! and the kidney, ruler of the Water Element in Chinese medicine, regulates it all.
