Opening Reception: Garden Magic- August 10th, 4-6:30 pm
Curated by Kendall DeBoer and Maya Rubio
With artists- Anahita Bagheri, Miguel Caba, Madison Donnelly, Sasha Fishman,
Stephanie Guerrero, Lynne Harlow, Lydia Kern, Gracelee Lawrence,
Heather Leigh McPherson, Laura Camila Medina, Haejin Park, Tatiana Sky, Brian Smith
curators’ talk @ 4:30
Garden Magic Curators’ Statement:
Few concepts push the limits of nature-versus-artifice so much as the garden. A lush park teeming with flowers, a manicured lawn behind a white picket-fence, an aristocratic expanse of symmetrically shaped bushes, a shared plot for community-grown vegetables—all these sites, and more, are zones of encounter, designated and marked as special. These zones, too, play with fantasy and reality, as garden legends and mythologies appear from the ancient world through today. Think the Garden of Eden, the Garden of Hesperides, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, or more recent fables like The Secret Garden.
Joining theatrical artifice with earth realities, gardens are places where we tend not only to growing plants, but to ornamentation, to surroundings, to sensory experience, to desire. Frequently an exercise in fantasy-construction, or building other worlds, we cultivate an affect-laden environment in collaboration with atmospheric conditions, attuned to the rhythm of everyday enchantment. The cherubic lawn ornament, the plastic pink flamingo, the concrete saint, the incandescent blow mold, the terra cotta bird bath—all intermingle with vines, weeds, blossoms, soil, insects, rainwater, rodents, fungus, detritus, and petals, stretching and blurring the boundaries of where nature ends and artifice begins. Present entities form an interconnected network, a dense relational web facilitated through and connected by the magic of the garden.
The artists grouped in this exhibition share an interest in toying with materiality and form to expand our understanding of organic and inorganic, especially in relation to constructed, emotive, theatrical spaces. Each sculpture, installation, and wall-hanging performs nature, heightened, magnified, and strange. Through shimmering surfaces, biomorphic shapes, vibrant and efflorescent colors, and suggestive flicker, these artists present us with work with the allure of a superbloom, structured, organized, and gardenized. Bringing these works together in this gallery space—a sacred enclosure, a lovingly arranged stage, an altar—we invite visitors to experience the intimacy, affectation, and enchantment of garden magic.
Kendall DeBoer is the Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine, and a PhD Candidate in Visual and Cultural Studies at the University of Rochester. She specializes in 20th- and 21st-century art made from unconventional materials, such as cellophane, tinsel, glitter, aluminum foil, balloons, garlands, and hair. Her interests also include craft, surrealisms, and self-taught art. She is particularly interested in affect, intimacy, atmospheres, and hyper-relationality. She recently wrapped up her role as Curatorial Assistant in Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Previously, she has held positions at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Contemporary Austin, the Blanton Museum of Art, and the Harry Ransom Center. She was part of the 2019 Mellon Foundation Seminar in Curatorial Practice at the Center for Curatorial Leadership.
Maya Rubio produces events, art shows, and other multidisciplinary projects. She also loves teaching, b/vlogging, and writing about art. Curatorial projects include “Public Bathroom” (Kenzy Cannon, The Tender Art Space, 2024), “The Banquet” (Kenzy Cannon, Horse Room, 2023), “What’s the Secret?” (group show, Gallery 263, 2022), and “Please Let Me In” (Kenzy Cannon, Boston Center for the Arts, 2022. Maya also leads Body Wash, an ongoing workshop series. (see below for workshop details at Overlap).