RADIOACTIVE RUNDOWN.
plastic sheet, concrete, house paint
2018
A pile of rocks lay stoic under layers of poured yellow and white house paint and concrete on the lawn. The uneven topography in some areas support pools of paint, and in others, gravity reminds us of the action of pouring: streaks and thin coats. The work is in conversation with Robert Smithson and Lynda Benglis, both of whom praise entropy, the nature of all universal matter losing energy, becoming chaos. Benglis’ work utilizes viscous materials to create site-specific pours and castings which are then hung in gallery spaces . Smithson’s works are generally site-specific land works that incorporate materials from the site. His piece Asphalt Rundown directly influenced this work.
The work is meant to reflect on the entropic nature of those artists’ works, and also to act as a tool for memory. By using the rockpile as a cast for my materials (with a plastic sheet to hold the cement and detach from the rock casting), I imagined that I would have been able to remove the materials from the rocks, and then display them as the negative space turned positive space. The work is meant to question our perception of reality, with memory becoming a telephone-effect, constantly changing and evolving to suit our understanding of the world around us. In turn, the work is also meant to warn us of our future, built and layered upon our past - the toxicity constantly evolving, forming new faces and sporting old ones. Thermodynamics become metaphorical, the entropic nature of matter becomes the entropic nature of humankind, propelling into disorder. This piece is riddled with the anxieties of our current state, politically and environmentally. It is displacement, industrial waste, and the natural order of destruction.
