February 16 – April 20, 2002
Featuring Sarah Seager
Opening Reception: 16 February 2002 5 – 7pm.
188 loose elements
things like
pure sound associations
improvisational jazz
free form where in principal
everything is equal
the id
and the superego
supersystems
It is the moments of connection and disconnection, presence and absence, visibility and invisibility which are recurrent themes in the work of Sarah Seager. She does not limit her use of materials to paint, photography, or collage, though she has used each of these as well as axe handles, old personal correspondence, and white record albums.
For her new installation at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Seager composed a dialogue about blindness, invisibility and the desire for vision. The text is sand blasted on large panes of glass which lean precariously against the walls and floor, acting as cue cards for the “actors” in this dialogue. The “actors” are represented by paper sculptures which are carefully balanced on the floor and can be easily shifted or transformed by a stir in the air, such as the passing of a viewer. The changing relationship between the paper sculptures; how they wrinkle and fold, if and how they touch, or how the light reflects off their surfaces, is at the center of this work. She also incorporated some of her earlier sculptures into the installation, such as an axe handle piece and her sculpture of multi-colored tacks “Why do we circulate all these papers when everyone says it will make no difference?” allowing the viewer to examine the relationships and recurring themes within Seager’s past and present work.
The fleeting, elusive nature of everyday human interactions is an ongoing interest in Seager’s work. Curator Marilu Knode wrote: “…Seager seeks the human self, lost in the arbitrariness of language and the overabundance of worldly objects.” She encourages the audience to create their own meaning for her work by producing sculptures and other objects which lack any obvious association or reference. By doing so, Seager asks the viewer to recognize and contemplate the subtle and often neglected aspects of life which, for Seager, are the most important.
Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight described her work as “spare, mixed media minimalism [that] has an unexpected dadaist edge of great wit and provocation.” Sarah Seager is not an artist from whom one can predict what will come next.
Sarah Seager’s work has been included in exhibitions at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum, and Westfalischer Kunstverein in Munster, Germany as well as many other local, national, and international galleries. She teaches at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA.
