Exhibition
Stephanie Temma Hier
CORRIDORS
Duration_ May 21–June 22, 2024
Opening_ Tuesday, May 21, 5–8 PM
Opening_ Tuesday, May 21, 5–8 PM
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Gallery Vacancy is thrilled to present Stephanie Temma Hier’s second solo exhibition at the gallery, CORRIDORS, on view from May 21 to June 22, 2024.
Being an indispensable space of our living condition, the corridor is commonly discarded as an under-examined, unregarded, transitional non-space between places. This infrastructure marks on a prologue with the assumption of unexpected plots waiting aside, an unveiling moment of astonishing discoveries. In Hier’s new body of mixed media works with oil paintings and glazed stoneware sculptures, dissimilar domestic objects are transformed into the protagonists that linger down the hallway off her other-worldly realm. The reinterpretations of nostalgic homely items evoke a sense of longing that lurks in the deep back of our memories, while interlaced with symbols and imageries that subtly challenge for reassociations. Gazing at the overlooked places in the modern urban surroundings and our collective imagination, CORRIDORS refocuses on the remnants of daily encounters, while themes of intimacy and sentimentality surface through Hier’s conceptual and material juxtapositions. Continuing her fascination in the interplay between various mediums, Hier frames the painted imageries with a whimsical twist of rediscovered ceramic sculptures depicting mundane household amenities. The painterly quality of the ceramic meticulously tickles with the materiality of painting. Organic, accidental coincidences that occur in the firing and making of ceramic become the decisive brushstrokes in painting traditions. Mornings at home with myself (2024) presents a ceramic vintage oven embedded with delicately painted snakes on the side and front. The liquid dripping of the glaze resembles the slithering of the reptile in mobility, yet simultaneously provokes the tactile familiarity experienced everyday with this kitchen appliance. Pushing the boundaries of two-dimensional surface, the artist delves into the sensual and emotional impacts on visual imageries and texture. Juxtaposing further with concepts and materials, Hier’s works are loaded with symbolism from art history and the transformative process of culture and living experience. Being the recurring subject of her practice, the form of sea creatures such as lobster, crawfish, and king crab are deliberately employed with the duality of being alluring and grotesque. What is now considered as luxury cuisine of decadence was once served for prisoners as punishment. In Are these my memories? (2024), a king crab is crawling its way to escape from the shopping cart, a common houseware spotted in urban living. The absurdity of which speaks to Surrealism as an incongruous element to the sense of uncanniness. Whereas in She used to want to be a paper swan (2024), a dancing crawfish takes the place of the ballerina in the jewelry box. Wittily titillating the personal and intimate moments, the nostalgia of the object takes on new meanings, mirroring the “corridor” of randomness where the depictions of the quotidian world meet with the surreality of invented relationships. CORRIDORS offers a profound reflection of the longing and fantasies for domestic life. After all, we live in an open-plan, anti-corridic world. Yet the traces of what have existed and what have been left behind still and will inhabit in the channels, connecting the history and the current, the image and the material, the ephemeral and eternal. |
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