Aggregates

by June Woest
​Shown at Lawndale's Juried Big Show
​Houston, TX

Lawndale Big Show

Houston, TX  

These sculptures are time-based and grow in terrariums. Fruit, vegetables, and rocks are cast in wet clay from plaster molds and appear damp and life-like. They are dirt landscapes that breathe, live, and die. While realistic in shape and texture, they are meant to elicit an interest in environmental control at the biological level. The Surrealist themes of contradiction and odd juxtaposition are combined with a cultural reference to science, particularly, the economics of soil, or agronomy. The rural production of food is experienced in a gallery– through the senses of sight and memory. The objects evoke sentiments of life and death in suspended animation and are more organic than they are natural.