Ophelia Arc: we’re just so glad you’re home
Curated by Nakai Falcón
April 18 – June 1, 2024
81 Leonard Gallery is pleased to present we’re just so glad you’re home, the first solo exhibition of multidisciplinary artist Ophelia Arc. Arc explores themes of resolution, mortality, and conditions of the corporeal and psychological through the fibrous art of crochet which she extends as a language into sculpture, drawing, and video. Her work contains the contradictions held within the dualities of nurturance and menace, where reflective positions emerge from traumatic narratives. Arc exercises her agency by utilizing references from her own history to challenge the viewer’s perspectives on societal norms. Answers are kept at a distance from the questions that arise. Similar to the looming dangers Arc describes in her work as “an impending finality,” there are illusionary conclusions just around the corner, but kept just beyond reach. The artist operates in this realm of uncertainty, drawing from herself, health research, and art historical aesthetics to establish vivid sights for self-inquiry.
For this current exhibition, Arc’s work spans across bodily structures of lush yarn and latex membranes to collages interwoven with infant photos and crayon pictures. The works displayed are rooted in states meditating on the notion of “wound dwelling,” a concept articulated by author Leslie Jamison referring to the act of unpacking pain within past experiences. It is a procedure for reconciling acceptance and forgiveness, and reclaiming agency over subjects by revisiting those instances. While people are often encouraged to heal by progressional methods of self-improvement, the focus of Arc’s practice revisits sites of physical and emotional injury for further analysis. Rather than seeking out healing, she excavates the subtle materials embedded within memory, dissecting their details while mapping out the interconnected branches between formative associations. The interrogation of these meanings behind her recollections are integral to the composition of the artist’s work today.
Informed by innovators like Louise Bourgeois and Judith Scott who uplifted craft from positions suppressed as forms of leisure or strictly gendered connotations, Arc continues subverting stereotypes by taking an act like crochet that is synonymous with patience and relaxation and pushing the medium to extremes contrary to established notions in the decorative arts. Dichotomies that include crochet alongside toys and transitional objects have their associations with pleasure, nourishment, and upbringing complicated by the artist’s dictation of their roles in order to draw out their withheld meanings. Thoughts initially gestate within the artist’s sketchbook, eventually maturing into intricate forms and even more complete drawings themselves. Abstracted and distanced by their ambiguity, they retain anthropomorphic characteristics with nostalgic symbols. Flesh toned palettes span across exposed cavities and tendrils reminiscent of organs and limbs, while the artist adorns her work with stitchings that echo medical sutures. Dyeing processes include either a single string or the entire piece, with each method distributing color differently. Arc’s pigmentation is achieved from a range of processes that involves acrylic dyes but also the natural pigments of rotted flowers, onion skins, mold-infused water, and occassionally the artist’s own blood. The assemblages stand as their own complexly textured and tinted biomes–encryptions within Arc’s alchemy. The inclusion of both living and decomposing materials are essential to the making process, as deterioration and rot are transformative; acknowledging the footprints of life, the developmental memories from childhood, and the difficulties grappled into adulthood. Collaged works embody biomorphic scrapbooks tethered to Arc’s past and include figures we can only assume are parental, but are shrouded in anonymity. It is these details knotted in the artist’s constructed mythos where her visual coding incites us to ask questions, but also discover peculiar vibrancies surrounding responses to wounds.
Ophelia Arc (b. 2001) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Providence, RI. Using sculpture, video, and installation Arc investigates psychoanalytic themes as they relate to her personal experiences and memories. Arc received her BFA from Hunter College and is attending the Rhode Island School of Design for her MFA. Her work is held in private collections and has been exhibited in Illinois, Indiana, London, and New York.
Nakai Falcón (b. 1997) is an independent curator based in New York. His practice primarily focuses on collaborations with creatives in POC and Queer communities exploring memory, otherness and relations tied across the human condition. Nakai received his BA in Anthropology from SUNY Purchase and an MA in Design History & Curatorial Studies from Parsons School of Design.
Image: i love beginnings!, 2023, Latex, thread, Arcoroc Canterbury Dinner Plate impression, silicone, 100 pieces of human hair, rusted razor blade, scan of journal spread (6/24/15), photo (5/14/13), photo (6/29/15), scan of letter (7/1/15), scan of note (2015), ripped out page of Francisco Goyas Saturn Devouring His Sun; 40 x 32 in
