Projects > Random Lines in Tereglio (2014)

Random Lines in Tereglio was part of a group exhibition, The Art of Description, curated by Doug Stapleton. The exhibition addressed how artists report the sensory phenomena of the world from a distinctive vantage point, evoking a sense of presence or atmosphere beyond information. The exhibition focused on still life, landscape and portrait, with an emphasis on the quiet meditation of these subjects.

I presented a wall installation of paintings and photographs from 2003–2013, and the video installation Lumaca (2012). I covered a 40-foot wall in the gallery with a handwritten text in English and Italian, Random Lines, which I originally wrote in 2012 for Rough Beauty, a solo exhibition in Tereglio, Italy. Thirty-five paintings and photographs selected by Doug Stapleton hung salon-style on the wall. Lumaca is a mesmerizing close-up of a snail eating, projected over an unmade bed. It focused on a humble but mysterious creature – hermaphoditic, nomadic, and ancient. Through careful framing and a large-scale projection, the viewer was drawn into the snail’s slow, methodical, unspectacular yet sensuous world in miniature.

The exhibition ran from November 25, 2013 to March 21, 2014 at the Illinois State Museum, Chicago Gallery, and subsequently traveled to the Southern Illinois Art & Artisans Center from June 15, 2014 – October 19, 2014, and to the Illinois State Museum, Lockport from November 12, 2014 to April 3rd, 2015.