Heather Rowe uses materials that are normally encountered in the construction of an indoor space — the parts that form the whole of the homes we inhabit. As Dorothea notes in the video we took at the show currently on view, Rowe often draws on her suburban Connecticut experiences and turns these bits into something that make us question what sculpture can be.
Using carpet remnants, dry-wall, moulding, and mirrors, small vertical frames are created into which mirror shards are inserted. The shards reflect the viewer and activate the spaces that are too small for one to otherwise walk through. The space becomes fragmented, partial and irreconcilable by these reflections.
Because these are finished, if fragmentary, spaces, they carry the weight that living spaces carry; the energy of everyday life that exists in homes. And because they are mostly empty frames, they incorporate the gallery space, the other visitors and all of the other artwork on view.
In a statement from a couple of years ago, the artist states: “The mind brings about distorted ideas of the actual space - assigning scale and size in a more psychologically charged way, shaped by events that occurred there.” After viewing her work, what spaces are you reminded of and what memories are evoked?
Connecticut Group Exhibition
D’Amelio Terras - 525 West 22nd Street
until February 20, 2010