Erin McKenna

finding the shape of the overlap

My thesis work is an installation that wanders between media (sculpture, drawing, painting, textiles, and dance), genres (art, craft, and design), and from process to object. Marbled paint, hand-routed drawings, seemingly functional doors or barriers, and jewelry like embellishments amalgamate into sculptures with painterly surfaces that beg for close looking from all angles. Whether working with textiles, paint, lumber, or hardware, the idea of misusing materials acts as a focal point throughout the work, pointing to our habitual way of thinking about materials, and their use, as well as hierarchical structures and the societal binaries encoded in them. The work maintains a strong emphasis on the artist's hand and visual language of color, form, and texture, all of which coincides with honesty and profound joy of making. The title of the exhibition, finding the shape of the overlap, refers to the moment when a material can no longer be categorized by societal norms and instead is placed in a gray area between excessive/necessary, masculine/feminine, and structural/decorative. Materials are used for their intended use, exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness, or used in ways they were never intended, thereby, blurring boundaries of what is the right or wrong way to use material.

rules for making (in no particular order):

• no hierarchy of materials
• subvert expected use
• complicate binaries, stereotypes and associations
• misuse, misapply
• allow for variable arrangements
• repeat, reiterate, reuse • consider the subversive possibilities of the excessive, fantastic, and necessary
• always let the labor be visible